Manchester Elementary Robotics Teams Qualify for World Tournament

Tuesday, March 26, 2024 at 2:54 PM

Congratulations to the Manchester girls' team for winning the Teamwork Challenge State Championship.

Photo provided.

(Manchester, Ind.) – Two teams from Manchester Elementary School competed at the largest robotics competition in the nation last Saturday.

Featuring 150 teams, the VEX IQ Robotics State Tournament was held at Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indianapolis. Of those 150 teams, only 22 would qualify for the world tournament.

Manchester Shiners 1 and Manchester Shiners 2 were among those world tournament qualifiers by finishing 2nd and 4th overall in the skill portion of the state tournament.

The team of Kaylee Brewer, Piper Cole, Jozlyn Damico, Charleigh Fox, Gabby Hehman and Teagan Pfaffl won the state championship in their division. Their route to the championship match started by finishing 2nd in the Sun Division, which qualified them for the division finals. There, the Shiners scored well enough to advance to the championship finals.

In the championship, the Shiners were represented by three-year team members Charleigh Fox and Teagan Pfaffl. A tie forced a drive off to see who could score the highest in the shortest amount of time. Fox and Pfaffl scored a 112 with a stop time of 58 seconds to secure the state championship win.

VEX IQ Robotics Competition Full Volume is played on a 6’ x 8’ rectangular field configured. Two robots compete in the Teamwork Challenge as an alliance in 60 second long teamwork matches, working collaboratively to score points.

Teams also compete in the Robot Skills Challenge where one robot takes the field to score as many points as possible. These matches consist of Driving Skills Matches, which will be entirely driver controlled, and Autonomous Coding Skills Matches, which will be autonomous with limited human interaction. Learn more at https://www.vexrobotics.com/iq/competition/viqc-current-game.

The Manchester Elementary Robotics boys' team of Brody Doller, Lincoln Graff, Chase Hamlet, Wyatt Heeman, Grayson Merida, and Landon Stroud also qualified for the world tournament, which is scheduled for April 25-May 3 in Dallas, Texas.

For full results from the state competition, visit https://www.robotevents.com/robot-competitions/vex-iq-competition/RE-VIQRC-23-2546.html#results-.