CSM Hosts Robotics Tournament for 30 Local Middle, High Schools

Thirty VEX robotics teams from Charles County middle and high schools descended upon the College of Southern Maryland (CSM) recently to compete in the Southern Maryland VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) Tournament – marking the return of in-person robotic competition at the college post-pandemic.

The VEX Robotics Competition, presented by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, is the largest middle school and high school robotics program globally, with more than 20,000 teams from 50 countries playing in more than 1,700 competitions worldwide. Each year, the competition presents students with an engineering challenge in the form of a game. Students, with guidance from their teachers and mentors, build innovative robots and compete year-round. This year’s challenge, “Over Under,” required teams to work together to score goals against an opposing alliance and elevate their robots at the end of the match.

Members of CSM’s competitive robotics team, the Talons, hosted the event at the La Plata Campus in late January and joined in the fun by volunteering as scorekeepers, referees and judges at the tournament. CSM faculty members pitched in as judges, hosts, and field construction and cleanup crews.

Congratulations to the following winners:

• Excellence Award - High School: Southern Maryland Robotics Club (SMRC) Marauders, Southern Maryland Robotics Club
• Excellence Award - Middle School: Disco Ducks, Piccowaxen Middle School
• Tournament Champions: SMRC Marauders, Southern Maryland Robotics Club
• Tournament Champions: Kaizen, Thomas Stone High School
• Tournament Finalists: SMRC Lucky Duckies, Southern Maryland Robotics Club
• Tournament Finalists: Disco Ducks, Piccowaxen Middle School
• Design Award: The Boehm of Our Existence, La Plata High School
• Robot Skills Champion: SMRC Lucky Duckies, Southern Maryland Robotics Club
• Judges Award: Fantastic Falcons, Theodore G. Davis Middle School
• Innovate Award: Warriors, La Plata High School
• Build Award: The Vexagons, John Hanson Middle School
• Create Award: Rizzinators, Piccowaxen Middle School
• Sportsmanship Award: Circuit Breakers 1, Westlake High School
• Volunteer of the Year Award: The Stine Men

The CSM Talons Robotics Team is a group of students who are passionate about designing, building, and programming robots to compete for awards. The Talons are widely known for their continued wins at the World Vex Competitions. To learn more about robotics at CSM, visit https://www.csmd.edu/student-services/student-life/robotics/index.html