The Penn-Trafford High School Robotics 3 class hosted the 4th Annual Penn-Trafford Western Pennsylvania State Qualifier on Friday, December 5. The full-day event brought together 23 teams from high schools across Western Pennsylvania to compete in a VEX Robotics tournament focused on engineering design, collaboration, and problem-solving.
This year’s VEX Robotics competition challenge, titled Push Back, required teams to design and build robots capable of working in two-team alliances. Robots were tasked with collecting and scoring 18-sided cubes into scoring tubes positioned at three different heights. Teams worked to load cubes of their assigned color into opposite ends of the tubes while simultaneously preventing opposing alliances from gaining control. Matches were won by the alliance that successfully scored the most cubes and controlled the greatest number of tubes.
Each match consisted of two phases. During Autonomous Mode, robots operated using pre-programmed code developed by students, navigating the field and completing tasks without human control. In Driver-Controlled Mode, students manually operated their robots to collect cubes and execute scoring strategies.
The Penn-Trafford Robotics Team advanced to the semi-final round of competition before being eliminated by the alliance that ultimately won the tournament. Despite the narrow elimination, the PT team received the Design Award, an honor recognizing excellence in the engineering process.
Penn-Trafford’s team included Grant Alexander, Lucas Fox, Nolan Schnauber, Cole O’Hern, Zayn Carty, Connor Baldwin, and Evan Sadler
Teams compete in the driver-controlled mode
5th-graders from Harrison Park Elementary School volunteered to reset the arenas between matches, helping the tournament finish in record time; (left to right: Cole Letterio, Brooks Galet, Lily Safin, and Karissa Kraly)