Utica Community Schools robotics team looks to take on the world

A Utica Community Schools VEX robotics team is taking on the world after earning top honors at the regional and state competitions.

The UCS ThunderChickens Vex robotics team will take part in the VEX World Championship, April 15-18, at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, KY, where high school teams from 26 countries will compete for top honors.

The UCS team of Andrew Fleury, Ryan Oleski, Dante Paglia, Kevin Kausch, and former UCS student Brennan Coffey qualified for the competition after earning a top design award at a VEX Robotics state tournament on February 22.

“Our team has had another outstanding season, winning awards at every tournament they have competed in since the season began last April,” coach Jeff Kausch said.

VEX Robotics is designed to create interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Each year an engineering challenge is presented in the form of a game.

This year’s game “Skyrise” requires robots to start in a configuration no larger than an 18” cube, then expand to reach goals as high as six feet to score.

Students, with guidance from their teachers and mentors, use the VEX robotics design system to build innovative robots designed to score the most points possible in qualification matches, elimination matches and skills challenges.

Now in its third year, the UCS team was awarded the top design prize in one of only two judged events at the state tournament at Michigan State University.

The design award is presented to the team that demonstrates an organized and professional approach to the design process, project management, time management and team organization.

The winning team must demonstrate how they created and implemented an efficient and productive design process to effectively manage their time and resources to accomplish their project goals.

Additionally, the team took second place in the programming skills competition through the efforts of team programmer, Dante Paglia.

Other honors earned by the team this year include:

• Michigan Summer Games (August 2014) – Design Award
• Monroe County Community College VEX Tournament (October 2014) – Excellence Award
• Notre Dame Prep VEX Tournament (December 2014) – Judges Award
• Nissan Technical Center VEX Tournament (January 2015) – Design Award