A group of ACP’s students in robotics club have qualified for the VEX VRC Robotics World Championship in Louisville, Kentucky. The championship, taking place the weekend of April 27th, is being presented by the Northrop Grumman Foundation and is a huge competition. The best robotics teams in the VEX IQ Challenge, VEX Robotics Competition, and VEX U will compete against each other and celebrate their accomplishments together.

Giovanni Giella, a sophomore at Erie, is a part of the group that qualified for the championship. Here’s what Gio had to say about their qualification:

Q: How long have you been in robotics?

A: I’ve been in robotics since 4th grade.

Q: What is your favorite thing about robotics?

A: My favorite thing about robotics is being able to create anything you want (within a set of rules) to complete an assigned task. There is a new game every year.

Q: What do you have to do to qualify for the world championship?

A: First you have to make it to state by winning a regional competition, and then at state there are different ways to make it to world. You can win tournament champions, become a tournament finalist, or win the excellence award, which is graded off your engineering notebook.

Q: Who is a part of your robotics team?

A: My friend Eddie, who also goes to ACP, his sister, the coach’s son and daughter, and me.

Q: What did you build?

A: We built a robot that can shoot balls with a catapult. It shoots two balls at once to hit two different flags, and it can also place caps onto different poles and climb different ramps.

Q: How did you feel when you first found out you qualified? 

A: Great. I’d say that my work- our work- finally paid off. After all these weeks and hours and having to go to robotics everyday and working on the robot and improving every single bit of it, it felt great to know that all of our hard work finally paid off.

A huge congratulations to Giovanni and his team on qualifying and good luck at the championship! ACP believes in you!

www.robotevents.com.