Due to the pandemic, Florida's premier Robotics Championship was divided into a virtual online event and a live event hosted in Naples by CSN. The four Championship events were held over two days (last Saturday and Sunday) with 52 robots representing 20 Florida schools competing head-to-head in exciting 90-second matches (with drivers) as well as autonomous programming challenges.  CSN robots played in every event, with each CSN division sending at least one robot team to VEX Worlds—by far the world's largest annual robotics competition.  Congratulations to all the students who worked hard to prepare and enter the tournament! (Submitted by Anadi Shukla)

Middle School VEX VRC Championship - Saturday

• Team 594A (Hudson Kennedy, W. Jack Preston, Roman Akimov, Sadie Lipman, and Emily Kaplan '25) won the highest honor, Excellence, and two other trophies, Tournament Champions & Judges Award. ★VEX Worlds Qualifier.
• Team 594M (Melita D'Souza & Megan D'Souza '25) earned the Design Trophy for a superior Engineering Notebook and design process. ★VEX Worlds Qualifier.

Middle School VEX VIQ Championship - Saturday

Team 494A (Devon Grider, Toby Kopecny, and Gabriel Miller '26) won 2nd place in the Teamwork Challenge as well as a trophy for the Judges Award.

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Elementary School VEX VIQ Championship - Sunday

• Team 94D (Harold Hoffmann, Tyler Foland, Ben Cunningham '28) won the Think Award for Autonomous Programming. ★VEX Worlds Qualifier.
• Team 94C (Isaac Melamed, Declan Earp, and Elana Yue '30) won the Judges Award Trophy.
• Team 94B (Ovie Aldea, Riley Grider, and Maayan Levy '29) won the Build Award.
• Team 94G (Cyrus Lamar '30, Maxwell Siek '29, Max Heller '29, and Maya Herbert ’29) won 2nd place Teamwork Challenge.

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High School VEX VRC Championship - Sunday

Robots having qualified and competing in the event include:

• Team 94Y (Corbin Kukk '22, Paolo Varriale '22, Max Myers '22, Bill Bedford  '22).
• Team 94X (Yell Newhall '21, Jordan Hochman '21, Jacob Baer '22).
• Team 94Z (Anadi Shukla '22, Zach Smallwood '22, Ben Ouaou '22, Trey Verhelle '22, Boyue (William) Zhang '23).
• Team 94G (Noah Cartwright '23, Samuel Sissman '23, Lucan Keyser '23) won the Innovate Award for their unique robotic design and engineering notebook. ★VEX Worlds Qualifier.

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Event volunteers are the heart and soul of VEX Robotics competitions.  Thanks to the US Robotics Team for organizing and successfully running the two days, managing more than 30 student volunteers.  (Special recognition to Student Event Manager: Sammy Sissman '23)  We are grateful to CSN alumnus Michael Foiani '19 (Brown Univ.) and Madison Headrick (Carnegie Mellon Alumna) for their expertise as Design Judges and to CCPS Career & Technical Education Department (Director Carlos Artime) for providing the live-stream setup and Immokalee High School Faculty:  Mr. Fred Rimmler - VRC Head Referee; Ms. Rebekah Adams - Scoring Referee; Mr. Tim Rayburn - Tournament Systems Operator. Thanks also goes out to CSN's Mr. Ian Ostrom (IQ Head Judge) and Ms. Kasye Beza (Skills Referee).  The events were chronicled in images by a Ransom Everglades School parent volunteer photographer as well as CSN's Susan Headrick.  Finally, a big thanks to faculty members Mr. Sean Headrick and Ms. Rachel Hansson, for mentoring and coaching our US, MS, and LS robotics students throughout the year!