Smoky Mountain Forge: VHHS Robotics’ First Signature!

Written by Grace Ding, Hannah Chen, and Sophia Chen

Photo Credits: Grace Ding

The VHHS Robotics team competed at their first signature event: a robotics competition that has direct qualifications to the VEX Robotics World Championship. With a season so far of local tournaments and getting used to this year’s game, all four of our teams worked hard to prepare for the Smoky Mountain Forge.

The tournament began on Friday, November 14th. Since it was a longer drive there, most Vestavia students used Thursday as a travel day.

On Friday, the focus was all on qualification matches. Each team had about seven matches that day; in each match, they were randomly paired with an alliance team and against another pair of opponents. Because of how many teams were present, there were two separate divisions that would only meet up again in the finals! In between, everyone also needed to complete skills (where your robot scores points without other robots in play) and team interviews with judges, which all went into award decisions.

On Saturday, the tournament wrapped up its qualification matches. Then, based on those results, alliance selection began for the elimination rounds. Here, 32 teams advanced in each division. After lunch, the elimination rounds played out, and then the award ceremony occurred.

Photo Credits: Grace Ding, Team 99040B competing

Because this was a signature event, some of the best teams in the world were present, and it was truly exciting to watch this level of competition! The audience was just as fired up as the teams on the fields; every de-score and strategic play had watchers on edge.

Photo Credits: Grace Ding, Vestavia cheering them on!

At last, Vestavia did well at this intense tournament with Team 99040B (Blackout robotics) making it to the semifinals of their division! As always, we learned a lot and will be using this experience to improve for future competitions this season.

Go Rebels!