Where can Kennesaw State students get the chance to build life-like robots and show them off to the entire world? Look no further than KSU’s very own Vex Robotics Competition Team.
Vex Robotics provides a learning community where people from all majors can become proficient in programming, modeling software and building.
The team meets Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons at various times and is open to students from all majors.
Winning was on the mind of the Vex Robotics club when it held a meeting on Thursday, Oct. 3, in the engineering labs on the Marietta campus. During this meeting, members were busy building robots for an international competition in Kentucky early next year.
The competition is known as the “Vex Robotics World Championship.” This contest begins with 100 teams from all over the world brainstorming possible functions for robots.
After naming said functions, the teams — regardless of nationality and language — compete by designing machines capable of fulfilling that function as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The 2020 “Vex Worlds” tournament is centered around stacking and color-coordinating cubes in an arena. Junior mechatronics major and club president Aaron Hiller said the KSU team is currently designing two, four-wheeled robots that utilize tread-based intake and hyper-efficient scissor-lift systems for this purpose.
The odds of the KSU team claiming total victory at “Vex Worlds” are notfar-fetched.
In the 2018 event, the KSU Vex Robotics Competition Team placed third in the world and received the 2018 “Amaze” award for that performance. The robot that received such high placement employed a miniature crane system that nested cones in specified zones of the tournament area.
Currently, KSU’s team needs to qualify for the world stage in two preliminary contests taking place in West Virginia and Indiana.
Hiller was not nervous about his club’s chances of qualifying.
“We have qualified for Vex Worlds every year since we started competing,” Hiller said. He and the other club members are confident that they can earn their spot and potentially take the global title in the end.”
The rules of the world contest stipulate that teams must use specific controllers, motor modules, central processing units — known as the brains of a computer —and batteries. Anything beyond that is up to the individual teams.
Junior mechatronics major and club secretary Alex Stephens was content with the supplies allowed by Vex and provided by KSU.
“The systems provided to us are introductory, but allow for dramatic improvements with experience,” Stephens said. “We have a lot of freedom to be creative.”
Hiller remarked that a lot of creativity in design comes from programming.
Hiller has been a part of the Vex Robotics club for two years. In the years prior to Hiller joining, the club disbanded and was revamped several times.
When Hiller initially joined, the organization had 10 to 15 members. Currently, that number has jumped to 35 active members, according to Hiller.
“Being a member [of Vex Robotics] has made me a lot more comfortable with programming,” Hiller said. “I get to see mycode come to life in these robots.”
A major contributing factor in the group’s resurgence was a newfound focus on competition and event participation.
Aside from “Vex Worlds,” the robotics club also makes a point of joining in on “Owl Con” and “Test Drive” gatherings as well.
Funding for the group currently comes from KSU alumni and sponsors of the club.
Hiller also mentioned that funding could be used to draw more attention to their cause.
“We get a lot of members by displaying our robots publicly. [I would like to] bring in more people from diverse backgrounds,” Hiller said. “Right now, it’s mostly engineers. But I’d love to see some art, music and other majors join too. It can be for anybody.”
To keep up with the Vex Robotics Competition Team and events, visit the club’s
For more information about the Vex Robotics World Championship next April, visit the tournament’s website.
