Under the direction of new coach, Brian Shinners, the team grew overall, increased the percentage of girls participating, and took part in more competitions than ever before. Plus two of our teams, Muppets and Hydra Resurrection, took home top awards from the VEX Robotics State competition!
This past year has been the strongest showing for OPEF’s Brooks VEX Robotics program ever! Under the direction of new coach, Brian Shinners, the team grew overall, increased the percentage of girls participating, and took part in more competitions than ever before. Additionally, two of our teams, Muppets and Hydra Resurrection, took home top awards from the VEX Robotics State competition, and qualified for Worlds. Read on for more details!
Wildstang Competition
Four OPEF VEX Robotics teams from Brooks Middle School competed in December against mostly high school teams at their first tournament of the season--the Wildstang VEX Robotics Competition in Rolling Meadows. This day-long event drew teams from throughout Illinois. Two of our teams, Hydra Resurrection and Muppets, were both selected to participate in the final Elimination Matches. Both teams made it to the quarterfinals before being eliminated by some tough competition. Attending this tournament allowed our young engineers to test their robots under the stress of competition. It also allowed them to see what other teams had designed.
Battle of the Bots Competition
On Saturday, February 7, over 300 spectators packed the stands as 170 young engineers from throughout the region went head-to-head at the OPEF 2015 Battle of the Bots. This year's tournament included teams from Chicago, Berwyn, Elmwood Park, Elmhurst and of course Oak Park. Teams competed against each other on a 12-by-12-foot playing field by driving robots they designed, built and programmed in the VEX Robotics challenge game, Skyrise. The 10th Annual Battle of the Bots Tournament Champions (for the alliance that places 1st in the tournament) was the Brooks team Hydra Resurrection who formed an alliance with two Elm Middle School teams from Elmwood Park,Team Derpalooza and The Unrusted Robots. Hydra Resurrection also won the Build Award.
VEX Robotics State Competition
A record number of OPEF VEX Robotics teams qualified for State Championship this year. Across both Brooks and Julian, there were nine total teams that qualified. At Brooks, Hydra Resurrection qualified for the State Championship at the OPEF 2015 Battle of the Bots. Another four Brooks teams (Muppets, Gearheads, United Alpaca Force, and iBots) qualified for the State Championship as a result of their impressive scores at the Great Lakes-Illinois Skills Challenge in Batavia on Sunday, February 15. These five teams spent a lot of the time leading up to the State tournament tightening screws, tweaking programming and practicing their driving in practice arenas.
At the very exciting State competition on March 7, our teams competed against the best middle school and high school VEX Robotics teams in Illinois. Oak Park came home with five awards, including both middle school awards. All five of the Brooks teams performed well throughout that weekend and qualified for the Elimination Round (a huge deal!), and Brooks teams ultimately earned two awards. The Muppets were Tournament Champions, and Hydra Resurrection brought home the Middle School Design Award. While these wins qualified the teams for the World Championship in Louisville, KY, the OPEF VEX Robotics program ended their season at State this year.
Congrats to all the Brooks VEX Robotics teams for an awesome season:
- Muppets: Aiden Domenz, Nicholas Evans, Jake Matyas, Ben Moyer and Cyrus Murray (first picture above)
- Hydra Resurrection: Takuma Kawamura, Jamal Sachleben and Rachel Taylor (pictured below)
- Revenje of the Bots: Rufus Parenti, Lincoln Scheer and Ryan Smith
- Iron Maidens: Samantha Braun, Lauren De La Paz, Zoe Haralambidis, Nora Johnson and Tao Tao Stolz
- Terminators: Anthony Bellmar, Catherine Delcommenne, An Edwards and Julia Dreher-Threlkeld
- Gearheads: Matthew Irving, Stellan Karim, Aiden Klass and Charlie Matyas
- Project Argent: Archer Ackerman, Ethan Bodzioney, Luca Ciampaglia and Aaron Close
- United Alpaca Force: Ethan Berleman-Paul, Jake Cramer, Yousef Karim and Eamon McAndrews
- iBots: Eric Bezaire, Gregory Carmichael, Benjamin Guerrero, and Timothy Smith
- Trollbot: Andrius Ambraziejus, Sydney Hunnewell, Danny Lingen, and Caleb Yarrow
- Newbots: Jack Farrar, Raghav Opal, Anders Ryan, and Samuel Shafiro
- Droids: Megan Blum, Alex Eggert, Francesca Gore, Noelia Guerrero, and George Sipiora
Thanks to all the folks who helped make this season such a success:
Coaches
- Brian Shinners
- Marc Bishop
- Maureen O’Rourke
High School Student Mentors
- Richie Biele
- Sebastien Johnson
- Gabe Rizzo
- Neil Skinkle
Adult Mentors
- Harry Carmichael
- Michele McAndrews
- Denis Roarty
- Pat Shannon
- Brian Taylor
OPEF VEX Robotics Program Sponsors
- Cummins
- Informitics
- NowSecure
- Aria Group Architects
- Strategic Hotels and Resorts
- Taylor Made Design, Inc.
