North Junior High, Apollo Robotics Teams Compete at State Tournament

(KNSI) – On Friday and Saturday, local students will compete in the state VEX Robotics tournament at the River’s Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud.

Sara Laudenbach, a technology teacher at North Junior High, coaches the North and Apollo High School robotics teams. She says this year, five North teams and one Apollo team will compete at the state competition.

“You get a kit that has a bunch of different metal and motors and different things with it, and then kids get to design their own robot for the competition,” Laudenbach said. “This year, we’re playing a game kind of like tic-tac-toe where you have a bunch of goals around the arena that resemble a tic-tac-toe board, and then you’re trying to score red and blue balls in those to get the highest score.”

Each team, made up of three to five students, prepares their robot. During the competition, four randomly selected robots — two on the blue team and two on the red — compete in the area at a time. However, due to COVID-19, Laudenbach says most of her teams’ competitions this year have been done virtually.

“Most of the events were skills-based, meaning we only have one robot in the arena, and it is competing against itself,” she said. “And with that virtually, we are livestreaming through YouTube to the judges.”

One of the North teams is the highest-ranked team for skills in Minnesota and has already qualified for the World Championships in May.

“They’re all very excited,” Laudenbach said. “It’s helped to have an in-person tournament, just because you have a little bit more of the old ways of doing things, so I think they’re pretty excited to go on Friday.”

Junior high teams are competing today, while the high school tournament is set for Saturday.

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