The Robotix club has recently decided to join a new competition league.

After only participating in the FTC league for the past four years, Robotix club advisor John Fuller has officially decided to get his club members more involved in the robotics community by creating a VEX team, as well.

While participating in FTC competitions, club members had to utilize their teamwork skills to create a single robot product. This lessened their chances of learning through hands-on experience and frequently resulted in the club losing about half of its members due to the large amounts of participants and the few opportunities they had to be exposed to technical work

The separation of the FTC league and the VEX league, as they were once a single entity, still left some aspects of the competitions unchanged. This includes the size of the arena, as well as the required size of the robot – which must remain 18 inches by 18 inches by 18 inches.

As new participants in the VEX league, students have less space for creativity, but more robots can be made. Only specific VEX parts can be used to create the robots, so Robotix club has purchased 16 VEX kits to maximize the amount of student participation.

Participating in VEX competitions will benefit the students due to its incorporation of Project Lead the Way concepts – including higher exposure to hands-on projects and an increase in productivity.

Club member Sydney Richardson, who has been a part of Robotix for two years, is ready for the club to have a VEX team.

“This year we actually have a lot of lowerclassmen which is actually why we started the VEX league, so it’s actually gotten a lot bigger since last year,” Richardson said.

There are 20-25 freshman that have joined the VEX team so far – which is up from the club’s 15 total members last year.

Fuller is very excited for his club members to experience changes in how the team competes.

“I’m hoping the kids can come out and we can maybe do a couple more competitions this year, because we have some money in the bank and I’d like to see what some of these younger, mostly the new kids – who are mostly sophomores and freshmen, are doing for VEX,” Fuller said. “I’m kind of curious just to see what it’s all about.”

Their first competition will be held in January, where they will compete against teams from all over the area.