Ninth Annual Competition Attracts a Dozen Teams From Five SLO County High Schools

SAN LUIS OBISPO — Team 920C known as “SLO-Botics C” is a team from San Luis Obispo who was named the 2019 California Central Coast VEX “Turning Point” Tournament co-champion — a regional qualifier for the California State Championship — held at Cal Poly edging out 42 other teams from 19 middle and high schools across the Golden State.

The team also qualified with both of these awards to compete in the VEX California State Championships, where the top teams from across the state will compete to qualify for the VEX World Championships in Louisville, Kentucky.

The tournament held on January 18-19 was hosted for the ninth consecutive year by Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers and San Luis Obispo High School. It included a dozen teams from four San Luis Obispo County high schools including Central Coast New Tech, Mission College Prep, and Nipomo.

Team 920C was one of four SLO-Botics teams to compete. In VEX competitions, teams are randomly paired with another team to compete against other two-team alliances. The SLO-Botics team was allianced with “The Resistance,” a team from Santa Clara, to win the tournament following some 72 grueling qualifying rounds. The alliance easily handled the competition, winning 25-10 in its quarterfinal match, 30-3 in the semifinals and 18-7 in the finals.

Two of the San Luis Obispo High’s other teams also advanced to the award rounds, with 920A, paired with Nipomo High School, making it to the finals and 920D, paired with Champs Charter High School in Van Nuys, making it to the finals.

San Luis Obispo High’s SLO-Botics fielded four teams that finished the qualifying rounds ranked 2nd, 3rd, 17th, and 19th. Two additional SLO County teams advanced to the award rounds, with 920A, paired with Nipomo High School, making it to the quarterfinals and 920D, paired with Champs Charter High School in Van Nuys, making it to the finals. Team 563T also formed an alliance with a team from Bakersfield High School and made it to the semifinals, losing to tournament runner-up. Two of Mission Prep’s three teams were ranked in the top 25: Royal-Botics B was sixth in the qualifying rounds while classmates on the A team were 23rd.

“The event attracted some 200 of the best high school and middle school robotics students in the state to compete against the clock and each other,” said Cassidy Elwell, SWE’s Robotics Chair. “Each two-minute match featured four robots from four different teams that competed against each other in a 12ft by 12ft field in the Advanced Technology Lab.”

Elwell, a VEX alumna from Bakersfield who chose to study Computer Engineering at Cal Poly after meeting College of Engineering volunteers when she competing as a high school student in 2014 and 2015 at the Cal Poly hosted tournaments, said the daylong event was a success.

“The VEX Competition was successful and inspirational for the competitors due to our 60-plus Cal Poly student volunteers and 20 community volunteers who served as judges, robot inspectors, referees, team queuers and more,” she said. “With a new wave of STEM leaders emerging, it was so exciting to see how passionate these students already are. We cannot wait to see what the 2019-2020 VEX Robotics game has in store.”

Contact: Cassidy Elwell, Cal Poly Society of Women Engineers

661-331-7061: [email protected]