Writes Riyan S. (Divs)
Merchant Taylors’ made its mark on the national stage on the 27th and 28th of February, as MTS_Andromeda, MTS_MAVER1CKS, MTS_1NNOVA and MTS_TR0JAN battled the UK’s top robotics teams at the VEX V5 National Championships in Telford. We had outstanding success with both MTS_Andromeda and MTS_MAVER1CKS earning their place at the World Championships in St Louis, Missouri this April.
Friday the 27th began early for everyone, with teams departing at 4:30am sleepy, but excited for the weekend ahead. After passing the mandatory referee inspection, the qualification matches began at 9.30am. MTS_MAVER1CKS and MTS_Andromeda started strong by securing impressive first wins. Throughout the qualifiers, all four teams delivered consistent performances with MTS_Andromeda securing an impressive ninth place in the High School division and MTS_MAVER1CKS finishing second in the Middle School division. MTS_TR0JAN and MTS_1NNOVA also securing their place in the elimination rounds which brought some of the most thrilling matches of the entire event. MTS_MAVER1CKS, allied with team 17711V Vector, fought their way into the finals to face 10478C Error 404 and 9258X UK Ruiguan.
In a nail-biting best of three finals, MTS_MAVER1CKS secured the first two matches with last second scoring, claiming the Tournament Champions title.
Huge thank you to team Vector for a phenomenal alliance, and to Error 404 and UK Ruiguan for a final that kept everyone on the edge of their seats. MTS_1NNOVA had an extremely well presented pit area with some clear effort into presentation of their development work throughout the season, along with a comprehensive notebook. MTS_TR0JAN performed extremely well to get this high up the table with an efficient robot which does not use complex pneumatic systems, therefore remaining reliable and consistent throughout the event. They finished in impressive tenth in Skills which hopefully may result in an invitation to Worlds in the roll down offering.
In the skills competition, MTS_MAVER1CKS set a new UK middle school record with a combined score of 159, 57 more than the previous record, earning the Skills Champions award. The other three teams also finished comfortably in the top half of their divisions. Additional awards included MTS_TR0JAN winning the Sportsmanship award for generally excellent attitudes towards other teams and staff leading the event. MTS_MAVER1CKS secured the prestigious Excellence award for all round endeavour.
This tournament was an enormous success and an experience every team will never forget. We would like to thank the staff who organised and led the trip; Mr Willson and Mr Williams along Mr Docherty for his ongoing support this season in school and at Regional events.
Over on the VEX IQ stage, our fourths got to work in their competition. Agastya K and Thurstan H. (4ths) have written the below account.
On the 1st – 2nd March, MTS_OMN1 and MTS_Vexperts attended the UK VEX IQ robotics National Competition at tine International Centre Telford.
This two day competition covered the Teamwork Challenge, Skills and Autonomous programming. This was a huge event that only a small portion of teams achieve as we took on 50 of Britains best teams who made it through the regional finals and it was a very prestigious event. The teams are split into two divisions for the teamwork challenge (with three subsections included separating elementary, middle, and upper schools). We had three attempts for our skills and autonomous to do over the course of two days. If we did well in this, it would gain us lots of points for the excellence awards and could get us to worlds just by winning it alone.
At the end of the competition, MTS_ Vexperts put on an astonishing run under pressure of hundreds of spectators and a live-stream across the world, rising from 15th seed to fourth overall. MTS_OMN1 won Nationals for both Skills and Teamwork meaning that they are now the UK champions. They also picked up the Build award for the best engineered robot. Well done to both teams for making it this far and putting an excellent effort in for the competition.
Many thanks to Mr Willson, Mr Docherty and Mr Carlon for their support throughout the season through all the weekend events and the countless hours in the workshop helping build and practice.
