Jason A. Smith | The Valdosta Daily TimesLowndes High School's robot Hercules throws a cube over a fence during the Vex Robotics state qualifier. 

VALDOSTA, Ga. — Lowndes High School hosted 26 schools with more than 60 kids and 40 volunteers for the Vex Robotics state-qualifying championship Saturday.

The competition allowed middle school and high school students a chance to qualify for state competition by winning one of three awards: judges award, excellence award and the tournament champion award, said Cammie Lund, LHS engineering and robotics and Vex advisor.

The students would build teams to compete in the game “Starstruck.” The game required students to build robots that could act autonomously for 30 seconds, then be taken over by a driver and finally hang from a pole, Lund said.

During the autonomous and driven part of the competition, the robot must pick and throw stars and cubes over a fence to score points. The farther past the fence the cubes and stars go, the more points the team earns. The stars weigh .65 pounds and the cubes weigh 1.68 pounds.

During the pole hang, the robots have to lift themselves onto a pole and hang onto it. The robot is judged on the height of the robot’s hang.

The game changes every year, so the kids have to constantly redesign the robots, Lund said.

The competition lasted from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. and had several phases. The first phase was ranking all of the robots in the competition. After the robots are ranked, the competitors build a team of three robots based on the rankings and the other robots’ strengths and weaknesses.

Once the teams are assembled, a semi-final, quarter-final and final competition are held.

Lund compared the day to an entire season of a regular sport such as football saying “we do it all in one day.”

Because of the team nature of the sport, there are three tournament champions, she said. After the competitors have moved to the state-wide competition, they will have to compete at the national and international level. 

Jason Smith is a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be contacted at 229-244-3400 ext.1256.