Summary of our Events
This year’s game has just been announced and TJ2 is extremely busy building a robot to meet the high standards that we set with our success during last year’s competitions. These weeks are what we have been working towards all year and our excitement has been difficult to contain! This fact, however, does not mean we have been sitting idly by and letting time go to waste. Our team has been engaged, not only with other competitions, but also fundraisers to help our students obtain the funds required ofthem. This pre-season has been especially eventful for our students. During the VEX robot season, we reached triumphs that were unprecedented. During Savage Soccer, 2 of our 5 teams were in the top 8, allowing them to choose robots that were most complimentary to theirdesign and strategy. Most of our other groups were chosen during alliance selections, making only one of our robots left out in the qualifying matches. One of our teams went farther in the competition than any other. Bang it Out reached the finals and came in second for the whole event. The alliance that was able to beat them was the only undefeated team of the day. All while this was in process, a small group of our students and one teacher attended the Java Programming seminar that was available that day. This information is being used for the programming of our robot during this build season. After Savage Soccer was over and done with, a few students and two mentors attended Savage Soccer North. During this competition, TJ2 was able to dominate over the opposing robots. Every robot present participated in the qualifying matches, many being seeded in the top 8. One team in particular was ranked number one and later was able to win the whole competition. They also won the judge’s award in “Excellence in Design”. Never before have we been so victorious during the VEX season. Fundraising this year has, as always, been helped along by our annual auction. We were lucky enough to be able to acquire a larger function hall to accommodate the growing interest in this particular event. Also, many alumni were invited, increasing our number of attendees and also the total night’s profit. The whole night exceeded our expectations by raising over $12,000 for the team and the individual students that donated items. Some of our largest selling items were a Cape house rental, two kayaks, and a drum set that were competitively bid at. We hope that next year’s auction will do just as well, ifnot more so, than this year’s. The beginning of this season has been most eventful from a number of different outlooks. Our VEX robots reached a new height of excellence, while our auction raised more for fundraising than we dared dream. All that can be wished for now, is that our build season and competitions do just as admirably as these past occasions. We have our fingers crossed.