(VIDEO) Carroll Comes Out On Top in VEX Robotics Competition

The Ag Center's Shipley Arena was abuzz Saturday with the hum of robot-like machines and the cheers of excited audience members. Table after table was lined up with piles of machine guts: tools, spare parts, wires, computers, batteries, and a host of other unidentifiable objects.

Super Sonic Sparks Team A was a tournament champion and Team C was a tournament finalist.

Ellie Nave, a senior at Winters Mill, participated on one of the Super Sonic Sparks teams. 

She explained that the teams are made up of homeschoolers, middle and high school kids and the teams are not school specific. The Super Sonic Sparks teams are sponsored by the 4-H Club, and in fact the competition this weekend was sponsored by the Sparks 4-H Club. Teams came from as far away as Virginia and New Jersey to compete.

"I met someone in a dog training class who was involved with it. I just got into it, I've been doing it since I was a freshman," Nave said. 

The competition is centered in a 12'x12' square field. The teams have two minutes to get their machines (using hand control devices) to stack tubes on top of goalposts and/or by to make the machine climb up and hang on a ladder in the center of the field. According to Nave, this is rarely seen as it is incredibly difficult to build a machine that can accomplish both the task of picking up/ dropping tubes and climbing. Points are earned based on the number of tubes placed on goalposts. 

Ninety teams--45 in the middle school division and 45 in the high school division-- competed for a variety of awards including the Innovate Award, the Amaze Award and the Energy Award, to name a few.