@John Perry
Pizitz Robotics Team
Several member of the Pizitz Robotics Team control a robot that stacks blocks. Photo by John Perry.
Walk into the technology lab at Pizitz Middle School, and you’ll find students maneuvering a robot that stacks blocks.
These middle school students have designed and built the VEX robot from scratch and their hard work recently paid off.
In April, the Pizitz Robotics team placed 67th in the VEX Robotics World Championship. More than 10,000 teams from 32 countries compete in the VEX Robotics Competition. The team is made up of 36 students working in groups of six on a robot. The class takes place during eighth period and there is also a camp during the summer
The team, under the direction of coach Bill McInnish, won a design award for one of its five competition robots on March 7 at the state championships at Jacksonville State University. The team placed 12th overall in the competition, which pitted Pizitz against both middle and high school teams from Alabama. The design award gave the team an automatic berth into the world championship meet, April 15-18 in Louisville, Kentucky. Through help from the community including the PTO, state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, and our Chamber of Commerce, the team was able to raise money to secure their spots.
Pizitz Robotics Team
In the world competition, teams of students are tasked with designing and building a robot to play against other teams from around the world in a game-based engineering challenge. Classroom STEM concepts are put to the test on the playing field as students learn lifelong skills in teamwork, leadership, communications, and more. Tournaments are held year-round at the regional, state, and national levels.
The Pizitz team, made up of nine students, they took “Robot A,” a forklift-shaped robot that can build tall towers and stack objects. Students spent the school year designing the robot. They rebuilt and upgraded it several times, McInnish estimated that only three robots of this type existed in the state.
McInnish said they competed against countries such as Japan, China and Saudi Arabia. The students worked alongside other teams and faced the challenge of having a language barrier.
“The biggest benefit for the students was being able to learn from children from other countries,” McInnish said.
The students start out by sketching the design of their robot out on paper.
“There’s an academic component to the engineering process,” McInnish said.
For McInnish, this team is particularly special to him as he is retiring this year. He finds the world championships a very fitting way to end his long time at the school.
“We are just happy to even have the chance to be in the world championships,” he said.
For more, visit vexrobotics.com.
