by Lucas Rivera
Two Columbus teams competed at Archbishop McCarthy High School on March 5th in the South Florida Regional VRC championship. This competition boasted tough competition, with 44 of the top teams in the region in it to win.
However, both Columbus teams ended with a record of three wins to three losses and managed to hang on to the 26th and 23rd rankings overall in the first part of the tournament. This was enough to advance into the second part of the tournament where Columbus team B gave it a solid fight and was able to make it to the quarter-finals ranked 10th. The A team was able to pull off one impossible win after another and fought their way to the semi-finals. The only Team A loss came from the #1 team of NSU University School who went on to be the State Champion.
Team A did so well at the Regional Championship that they have been selected to represent Christopher Columbus High School against 800 of the best robotics teams in the world, hailing from over 40 different countries. They will be competing in Dallas, Texas in the VEX World Championship from April 25 to 27. Team A, or Explorer 1, consisted of Alessandro Fernandez, Erick Gonzalez, Nicholas Guzman and Christopher Guzman.
"We are truly proud of our accomplishments," Fernandez said. "To get to this level, it took long hours, weekends commitment, and even vacation time dedicated to building a Robot that was able to compete against universities sponsored teams. Not an easy thing to do as their resources are vaster. We did it! And we are going to Worlds!"
Team B members consisted of Anthony Perez, Mario Villaverde, Daniel Khoury, Jorge Gonzalez, James Barbeite and Andrew Vasta. They put up a good fight and made quite a name for themselves in the rankings, and they will surely be ready for more competitions in the future.
The Explorers are moving on to the World Championships and they know that the challenge will be fierce.
"Qualifying for the World Championship represents being among the top in terms of the future of any field," Fernandez added. "Robotic engineering and its principles, no doubt, will affect all industries. Hence, we, at CCHS, are in alignment with what the future holds. We are developing the roadmap for future generations in terms of using critical thinking skills, coding, programming and engineering principles. Staying ahead of any advances is what we are all about as our motto states: Adelante!"
