ESPN Honolulu Sports Festival Vex Robotics Challenge
This year, Highlands Intermediate and Pearl City High School hosted the ESPN Honolulu Sports Festival Vex Robotics Challenge Sponsored by ESPN 92.7 1420. This event took place on June 15, 2019 from 9 a.m to 4 p.m. at the Neil Blaisdell Exhibition Center. Each team competed in ten matches with an autonomous round of 15 seconds and drivers’ round of 1 minute 45 seconds. The goal of the game is to pick up and stack as many cubes as you can. Each team participated in the elimination rounds.
Highlands Intermediate Team 394A did well in this tournament. Our robot consisted of a tall claw on a DR4B to pick up cubes. We started with a previous robot. However the day before the tournament, we changed our intake from a cage to a claw because the cage was too difficult to manipulate. This did cause a slight delay but we managed to push through and finish in time. The afternoon prior and morning of the tounament, we went to the Neil Blaisdell Exhibition Center to set up the fields and practice with the robot. Pearl City High School (4142B) and Island Pacific Academy (4443x) were the Tournament Champions and qualified to go to the State Championship. Island Pacific Academy also won the Robot Skills Challenge. Highlands Intermediate ended in 5th place.