South’s VEX Robotics Team brought four robots to compete at the IHSA State Championship against 48 other schools from across Illinois, Caspar Chen, VEX Robotics Team Programmer, said. The robot, TitanTron 38535A, was awarded 12th place in the world in the Skills Category and second place overall in the state competition, senior Phoebe Kim, VEX Robotics Team Member, said.

The team arrived at Batavia High School on March 13, showcasing the robots they have programmed in Engineering Club throughout the entire school year, Chen said.

“For the past few weeks, the team has come together to work on the competing robots on the weekends,” Chen said.

To qualify for the state competition, teams must win at least one local tournament, Kim said. Teams can also advance by earning excellence awards or titles of skills champion or tournament champion, Kim said.

“South ended up getting several awards throughout the season, so qualifying for state really was not an issue,” Kim said.

Members of the VEX Robotics team work together to design, code, and construct different components of the robot using a special computer-aided design (CAD) program, senior Matthew Yam, VEX Robotics Captain, said.

“Each person has their own individual role in helping to work on the robot,” Yam said.

The team is looking forward to Worlds, the week-long world championship in Saint Louis, MO, on April 21, Yam said.

“The sheer growth of the robotics program this year and the amount of success that we’ve got being ranked first in the state is insane,” Yam said. “This same amount of success last year would be unimaginable.”