SAC VEX Robotics team qualifies for World Championships

It wasn’t that long ago, in January 2020, that a young St. Andrew’s College robotics team called 97779A went on to qualify for the World Championships in their inaugural season. Robotics at SAC was thriving, and not only was our first VEX Robotics team going to the World Championships, but we also were hoping to extend our ten-year consecutive run of representing Canada at the RoboCup Junior World Championships, but the impact of the global pandemic put a pause on those hopes.

 

Now, four years later, spring is in the air, and robotics is thriving once again. SAC attended the last two RoboCup Junior World Championships: Bangkok, Thailand, in 2022 and Bordeaux, France, in 2023.

 

This past weekend, our youngest VEX Robotics team, team 97779X, attended the Ontario Provincial competition. SAC’s veteran team 97779A went into the Provincial Championships with a provincial top-ten spot in the Skills Challenge, but team 97779X jumped ahead of them!

 

The “X” team had one of the highest autonomous runs, followed by a deftly executed driver-controlled run, and earned the second-highest Skills score at the competition. That score earned them a national top-ten spot. The “X” team is now ranked eighth in Canada out of 334 teams! Their incredible Skills score also qualified them for the VEX World Championships in Dallas, Texas, on April 25.

 

Congratulations to the “X” team: Eric Cai, Charles Wang, Chen Yu Zhang and Eason Zhao.

 

And thanks to those students who started it all: Class of 2020: Kevin Zhang and Marco Li; Class of 2021: Roy Huang, Eddie Jia, and Simon Li; Class of 2022: Bruce Sun; Class of 2023: Andy Wang and Aaron Wang.

 

Story by Terry Prezens