To celebrate their World title, seven of the nine members of the Cumby Robotics teams visited during the KSST Morning Show. They brought two robots and their sponsor, Lee Gifford. Controllers Larek Walker and Ken Chapin described the job of “driving” with hand-held controls while the robots perform tasks during contests. Hannah Jarvis and Lacy Jacobs are part of the support team, helping the drivers watch what the opponent’s robots are doing. Caden Phillips, Hunter Milam and Kadden Cota contribute to design of robots and with strategy during practice sessions. According to Ken and Larek, the 2017 World competition had the robots moving “stars” and “cubes” from one side of the ring or court to the other, similar to a timed tennis match. They also described how they lost the second place title due to a heartbreaking tie-breaker match. Next year’s goals of the VEX contest will be different, and will require different strategies and designs of robots. Presley Clampitt and Jesslyn Bond are also team members. Several of the Robotics students will graduate this year, and new students will be selected to join the “world class” robotics teams at Cumby ISD.
