Nine VEX robotics’ teams from the Greenville Sixth Grade Center and Greenville Middle School competed in the Austin VEX Tournament on Saturday, March 10^th in Austin, Texas.

Team 2148B (Holdyn Mason and Austin Roderick) from the Greenville Middle School secured the Tournament Championship Award and Team 3148B (Danielle Mumphrey, Melissa Osornio and Xachary Aguilar) from the Sixth Grade Center obtained the Tournament Finalist  Award losing only to the tournament champions.

Team 2148B joined the joined the #3 alliance with Team 5678 and Team 2587Z. Both of those teams are from Houston. Those students competed against 43 high school and middle school teams from the Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Flower Mound and Greenville areas.  The action-packed day required the Greenville Middle School and Sixth Grade Center students to execute VRC Gateway, a game that is played on 12’ x 12’ field, and compete in matches consisting of a twenty-second autonomous period followed by two minutes of driver-controlled play. The object of the game is to obtain a higher score than your opponent alliance by scoring barrels and balls in goals, earning bonus points and doubling or negating goals.

Team 3148B from GMS formed the #3 alliance with Team 300 from Houston and Team 2158P from Austin. They led their alliance to the tournament finals.

Team 3148S (Ethan King, Nicholas Ruprecht, Samuel Pena and Edgar Ramirez) from the SGC was the #1 seed from the qualification matches. They formed the #1 alliance with Team 3883 from Houston and Team 2148A (Kolton Evans, Zack Freeman, Allen Holley and Raymond McClure) from the SGC. Team 3148S led their alliance to the semi-finals.

Team 3148D (Michael Sisto and Hannah Mulder) from the SGC joined the #2 alliance formed by Team 9999, The Weaselbots, from Greenville and 9401M from San Antonio. They lost to the tournament finalist in the semifinals.

Team 2148M (Hunter Hooten, Hector Pineda and Chandler Herrington) from GMS joined the #6 alliance with 2158M and Team 2158, both from Austin. They lost to the eventual tournament champions in the quarterfinals.

Team 3148C (Will Adel, Austin Sanders, Caden Rutz, Kaylea Evans and Aidan Smith) from the SGC joined the #7 alliance with Team 2019C from Flower Mound and Team 3883B from Houston. They were eliminated in the semifinals.

Team 2148C (Jacob Hunnicutt and Brian Adams) formed the #8 alliance with Team 8756A from Austin and Team 9401H from San Antonio. They lost in the quarterfinals.

Johnny Tharp , District Robotics Facilitator and Instructor (Grades 1-8) says of the teams, “I am very proud of what all of the Sixth Grade Center and Middle School students accomplished in Austin and throughout the year. These teams were competing with High school students and sixth graders were the #1 seed from the qualification matches. Sixth graders were tournament finalists and middle school students were tournament champions. This says a great deal about a first year robotics’ team and what they have accomplished with hard work and dedication. Each and every student is a winner. Again, for a rookie team to have 3 robots qualify for the VEX World Middle School Championship is truly amazing. I cannot wait to see what will happen next year.”

By virtue of being tournament champions, Team 3148B  joins Team 2148A and 3148A at the VEX World Middle School Championship held this year at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim California on April 19^th – 21^st. These teams have also been invited to participate in a Dallas Area Scrimmage for the 12 local teams that have qualified for the Middle School and High School World Championship. The scrimmage will be held on either March 31^st or April 7^th in Arlington.