From left are Luis Rey, Tyler Mims, Justice Maravilla and Sawyer Weigant, who competed in the VEX Robotics Competition Saturday at Collierville High School.
Staff Reports
More than 100 middle and high school students from Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee descended upon Collierville High School on Saturday for the Dragon Invitational VEX Robotics Competition.
Twenty-four teams came together for a non-stop, action-packed day of competition where they battled against each other with robots created from VEX EDR.
Participants squared off in the game VEX Robotics Competition Nothing But Net, which is played by scoring colored balls in high and low goals and by elevating robots in a designated climbing zone.
At times, each school would work by themselves and other times they were paired with different schools.
VEX Robotics Competition Nothing But Net was developed by VEX Robotics Inc. and the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation.
At the end of the day, the final bracket pitted the Red Alliance — formed by teams from Brentwood Academy and Collierville — against the Blue Alliance with teams from Drew Central and Monticello Occupational Education Cooperative and Memphis Collegiate School.
Collierville STEM teacher Shelli Brasher noted that this was the first time the school has competed in the competition. The Dragon Invitational VEX Robotics Competition was one in a series of tournaments supported by the REC Foundation and various national, regional and local sponsors.
The competition season culminates each spring, with the top performing teams from local and state VEX Robotics Competitions competing against each other at VEX Worlds.
At VEX Worlds, these exemplarily teams have the opportunity to challenge their top-ranked peers from over 30 countries around the world, including Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States of America.
