By Jacob Albertson, ja245@uakron.edu
The annual Dan Spak Memorial Firestone High School VEX Robotics Competition was held this year on Saturday, November 11th. Being held at Firestone High School, it’s a very popular event that attracts a lot of non-robotics students whether it’s to volunteer or their friend might be competing in it. It also brings in the families of these competitors who are often seen cheering on their sons and daughters during their matches. With basket raffle giveaways, concessions, and 104 teams across 2 divisions, it was a very large event, and a successful one at that.
The setup for an event this size took months of planning and preparation. Getting teams to sign up, parents and other students to volunteer, finding the resources required like power strips and game fields, finding referees, and acquiring any other important resources made it a very time consuming task. Special signs were ordered too that were placed outside the school to direct bus drivers and other people on the road, as well as used inside to mark places like the coaches room, concessions, practice fields, skills fields, queueing tables, and division fields. Once the time came on November 10th, the final part of the setup could actually begin. 11 hours and over 40 volunteers helped put together the largest North-East Ohio regional qualifier and did a spectacular job. The whole thing ran smoothly the next day despite quite a few struggles during the setup.
As previously mentioned, 104 teams competed at the competition, requiring the event to be split into two divisions: the Cowboy Division and the Queen Division. These divisions were named after their respectful head referees: Chris Morris and John Queen. The reason Chris’ division is called the Cowboy Division is because he always wears a cowboy hat and has donned the nickname “Cowboy Chris” at these competitions. Back on track to the divisions. Each division held 57 teams and used 3 match fields each to run their matches. This totalled into 6 different fields needing to be built for this event, as well as ropes to keep the two divisions separate and control the traffic. The Queen division was 40 minutes behind schedule with their matches due to new referees not understanding the game rules.
The matches are broken down into two parts: the qualifiers and the tournament. The qualifiers are a random schedule of 2v2 matches to rank each team in that division for alliance selection for the tournament. For example, whoever ranks first gets first pick, second gets second, etc. This also applies to the seeding for the tournament as well. The tournament features knockout rounds until one alliance is left standing. It’s made up of 32 teams broken down into 16 alliances. Each alliance last standing from their division finals would face the other divisional champion in the tournament finals. This made for a 64 team, 32 alliance tournament.
After the tournament the awards were handed out, each one representing a different accomplishment that a team/individual had made at the competition
Volunteer of the Year: Beethan Stally
Think Award:11124P: Project 25
Sportsmanship Award: 6741S: Scorched Earth
Judges Award: 7316X: Xcalibur
Innovate Award: 6741A: Arcturus
Energy Award: 44654C: The Girlie Pops
Design Award: 7316R: Rigatoni
Create Award: 11124R: T-Rex Push-Ups
Build Award: 7167F: Jaguarbots 5
Amaze Award: 2011B: Biohazard
Robot Skills Champion: 6008C: C U Later
Cowboy Division Finalist: 2011B: Biohazard
Cowboy Division Finalist: 7316X: Xcalibur
Cowboy Division Winner: 6008C: C U Later
Cowboy Division Winner: 11124P: Project 25
Queen Division Finalist: 6403A: Aces
Queen Division Finalist: 6008N: RNA
Tournament Champion: 2011A: Asymmetrical
Tournament Champion: 2011D: Dopamine
High School Excellence Award: 2011A: Asymmetrical
Middle School Excellence Award: 44654B: Six Amigos
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