Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Robotics team wins honors
Three Downingtown based robotics teams competed in a world championship
A Downingtown based robotics team won multiple honors at the 2015 Vex Robotics World Championship held at the Kentucky Exposition Center.
The team, called 80Y Cypher, also earned the Middle School Opportunity Division Champions during the competition on April 18. However, they were defeated by Singapore allied teams in the Middle School Tournament finals for overall world championship.
Team 80Y Cypher includes students Eric Hallahan, Rajat Nilakhe, and Saahas Yechuri from Downingtown Middle School and Purushottam Shukla from Valley Forge Middle School.
The Downingtown based Vexmen teams compete in the Vex Robotics Competition with more than 12,000 teams coming from 33 countries. The top robots are invited to the Vex World Championships held in Louisville, Ken- tucky to showcase more than 800 teams in five groups from elementary through college, according to its website www.robotevents.com.
The Cypher team was also awarded the Middle School Opportunity Division Excellence Award from the competition held in Louisville, Kentucky. That award honors the overall top performing robotics team in the division both on the field and through their design.
80Y Cypher placed fifth in the world for autonomous programming skills and 10th in the world for robot skills among middle school teams.
This is the fifth consecutive year this Vexmen have won an award at the Vex Robotics World Championships and their first division championship crown, according to event organizers. The Vexmen team said they strive to educate and enhance their STEM education from elementary through high school with direct parental involvement and guidance. Students learn engineering, programming, building skills, presentation skills, and competitive drive.
Teams design, build and program robots that they create from a clean sheet of paper using official Vex Robotics materials. Vexmen teams compete with their robots at regional events through Pennsylvania, culminating in the Pennsylvania State Championships. A limited number of robots advance from each state to Vex Worlds, according to www.robotevents.com.
The Vexmen sent three teams to Louisville, Kentucky to compete in the 2015 Vex Robotics World Championships. All three teams qualified to be judged for overall design.
Those teams, in addition to team 80Y Cypher, include a Vexmen middle school team called 80N Nightcrawler. Team 80N Nightcrawler includes students: David Larsen and Jeremy Lehman from Lionville Middle School, Vruti Soni from Marsh Creek Sixth Grade Center and Home School student Joey McGee. The high school team representing the Vexmen was team 81M Mystique, which includes students: Miranda McMillen and Sarah Turk from Downingtown STEM Academy and Robert Casazza and Ian Mountain from Downingtown West High School.
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