Over the weekend of March 6, Harker sixth graders Chelsea Liu and Andy Zhang (pictured right and left above, respectively, holding their teams’ trophies) delivered great results at the Northern California VEXIQ Middle School Regional Championship robotics tournament. Liu’s team, Tetrahedron, took second place overall, qualifying it for the world championship to be held later this year in Dallas. Zhang’s team, known as Season Stealers, was in an alliance with Tetrahedron and took second place in the teamwork challenge, which also earned the team a trip to the world championship.
Fifth graders Sophie Cai, Natalie Deng, Ariana Siamwalla and Alina Zhu had a successful run at Saturday’s VEX IQ Robotics tournament in Morgan Hill, where the team (known as Actuatorly Awesome) took first place in both Teamwork and Skills and also won the event’s Design Award. Their performance qualified them for the Northern California Regional Championship, set to take place March 4. The team thanked the members of another Harker VEX IQ Robotics team (Techtoro, made up of fifth graders Jolie Chao, Sophie Croswhite and Laura Zhang), who also qualified for regionals and offered their insights with other teams.
Harker upper and middle school VEX Robotics teams earned many awards competing in VEX Robotics Competition (also known as VEX VRC) events, beginning in October. VEX VRC is the largest and fastest growing robotics program in the world where teams compete in three areas: tournament-style, robot skills competition and judged awards.
The nine-month long season culminated with three important events: the Signature NorCal in February, the California State Championships in March and the VEX Robotics World Championship in May.
Juniors Amrita Pasupathy and Nidhya Shivakumar, sophomore Claire Su, and Kaitlyn Su, grade 9, were Division Champions at the VEX Robotics World Championships and finished 14th among 818 teams in the Robot Skills Competition. Over the course of the season, they were three-time tournament champions, two-time tournament finalists, won two Excellence Awards (the highest award given to the top all-around team) and won two other awards (Design, Judges) at local events.
Sophomores Sriram Bhimaraju, Zachary Blue and Jordan Labio won the Excellence Award at the California State Championships. They also won the Think Award at the World Championships and finished 21st in the Robot Skills Competition (among 818 teams). They also placed second in Robot Skills and won the Think Award at the NorCal Signature event. At other local events, they were named the Robot Skills Champion four times, tournament finalists twice and won a Design Award (awarded to the team with the best engineering design process).
Robert Costin and Ramit Goyal, both grade 10, qualified for the World Championships with their strong showing in the Robot Skills Competition at the California State Championships. They were the Tournament Champions at the RoboLabs December event in Dublin.
Risa Chokhawala, Orion Ghai, Rohan Goyal, Ayden Grover and Krishna Muddu, all grade 7 were division finalists at the middle school VEX Robotics World Championships. They won the Think Award at the middle school California State Championships in Sacramento and were also finalists at the NorCal Signature event. Their season concluded with a tournament championship, and an Innovate Award at local events.
Another team of seventh graders — Brandon Labio, Aaron Luo, Trisha Shivakumar and Nathan Yee — won the Design Award at the World Championships and finished 10th among 508 teams in Robot Skills. They were also Robot Skills champions and won the Think Award at the middle school California State Championships. Over the course of the season, they also won one tournament championship, one Robot Skills championship and an Excellence Award at local events.
Harker upper and middle school VEX robotics teams were named world champions at the VEX Robotics World Championship held May 16-22. The VEX Robotics World Championship is the largest robotics competition in the world with over 8,600 students and 798 teams from more than 30 countries competing. The 798 teams were selected from more than 12,000 teams based on their performance in various events throughout the season. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition was held remotely. The VEX World Live Remote Tournament (LRT) Championship pitted a pair of teams against each other to score as many points as possible. The VEX World Live Remote Skills (LRS) Championship challenged a single robot to score as many points as it could.
Sophomores Amrita Pasupathy and Nidhya Shivakumar won the High School VEX World LRT Championship and were crowned world champions. Pasupathy and Shivakumar were undefeated among the 307 participating high school teams throughout the qualifying and elimination rounds until the finals of the tournament, in which they competed against the best high school teams in the world. In the finals, the pair won two out of the three matches to be crowned world champs.
In the Middle School VEX World LRT Championship, the one-person team of Kaitlyn Su, grade 8, was crowned the world champion in the middle school division, comprising 166 teams. She went undefeated against the best middle school teams in the world. She won all her matches in the qualifying and elimination rounds, including a sweep of the finals.
In the High School VEX World LRS Championship (comprising 189 high school teams), ninth graders Jordan Labio, Sriram Bhimaraju and Zachary Blue earned the coveted Judges Award, given to the team that is most deserving of special recognition.
Despite a season cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, four middle school robotics teams had a highly successful year in the VEX Robotics Competition. All four qualified for the California State Championships, which were scheduled for earlier this month before being canceled.
Eighth graders Zachary Blue, Sriram Bhimaraju and Jordan Labio were two-time tournament winners and twice won robot skills challenges, in which the team ranked in the top 20 worldwide. The team also received a Think Award for the quality of its robot’s programming.
In their first year of competition, Angela Liu and Kaitlyn Su, both grade 7, won a pair of tournaments as well as a robot skills challenge and were finalists and semifinalists multiple times. Additionally, the team placed first in a VEX Silicon Valley Middle School League event.
Eighth graders Ramit Goyal, Joe Li and Nathan Liu were winners at one high school tournament and twice reached the semifinals in other events. Their robot’s user interface earned them an Innovate Award.
Ella Yee and Julie Shi, both grade 8, also competed for the first time this year, winning one tournament and reaching the quarterfinals in two other events.