Hi everyone,
Turning Point was my last year in the VRC and although this may be a few months late, I felt as though I was obligated to acknowledge the tremendous impact VEX and the RECF had on my life.
My school began its robotics program with Nothing But Net, and although I was a part of the robotics group since then, I didn’t experience a full competitive season until 2018-19’s game, Turning Point. And I’m very grateful I did. I met some of my closest friends while working in robotics, and the overall competition experience pushed me to try my best and learn all I could in the time I had. At one point, I became team commander, which was a role I enjoyed greatly. Of course, I knew that my skills in programming or journal editing paled in comparison to some of the other teams in my region, but within my school’s limited robotics program, I was very proud to have achieved what I did. I never went to Worlds or won the award I coveted for the entire season (Design), but winning a Think Award at my final competition was close enough for me to consider my high school robotics career to be a success. I only wish I had been more heavily involved in the years prior to Tower Takeover.
Starting university, I had planned to join a VEX U team that, unfortunately was cancelled. Since then, I’ve been looking at resources in this forum to see what improvements I could have made to my coding and engineering journal. I may still volunteer for the high school VRC competitions in my region, but I doubt it is nearly as exciting from the other side of the judging table. Moving forward, I’m not sure what sort of robotics organizations/competitions I may be involved in the future with, but I do know that my short experience in VRC has immensely helped me in terms of team management, programming, and project documentation. So thank you VEX and RCEF for all the experiences that you enabled me to experience. I hope many more students are lucky enough to have such an opportunity. And one last thank you to the members of my old team, 98549Z, I couldn’t have gone so far without you guys.
edit: accidentally called last year’s game Tower Takeover lol
