"Team B and D's robots at Saint Andrew's International School," by ISB, 2023
The Thai Nationals Vex Robotics Championships took place in March, where ISB won both the skills challenge and the tournament. The Thai Nationals is the biggest robotics competition in Thailand. Schools all over Thailand and other countries come to participate in the tournament. There is a round-robin, then the top 16 teams qualify for the quarter-finals. There are 2 robots per team. Robots have to drive around in a field, picking up yellow discs. After picking up 3, teams use their loading mechanism and store the discs in the robot. They then drive toward the high goals and use another mechanism to shoot the discs into the goal. "The hardest at first was shooting the discs. It was hard to get to the same spot in matches every time. However, once I got used to it, I was always consistent," says Rocoo Grassi, driver of team A. The National tournament winners attend the world championships in Dallas, USA. Team members often include a builder, designer, coder, and driver.
ISB teams usually dominate the robotics competition. According to Peter Kratz, ISB steel panthers coach: ISB teams win because of 3 main things, desire and love for robotics, time, and high standards. ISB's robotics team has set high bars for future teams, and newer groups hope to fulfill the 'shoes.' ISB teams have a strong passion for robotics. This builds over time - since ISB has robotics in middle school, students develop their passion and skills over time. ISB's robotics club is also open all days of the week and allows anyone to stay until 5 pm ." For the nationals, we used many features, such as a giant extension which gave us a massive increase in points." Says Yoshitaka Isobe, a freshman on team D. ISB teams have various unique design advantages compared to other schools, which helps them achieve better scores and placement. "We have weekly meetings and look at different robots on youtube and try to implement them into our robot." Navin Kasemtanakul, "Our skills challenge design used many new features we saw, such as a quick load and tracking wheels to pinpoint our location on the field so that we could write a good autonomous code." Overall, ISB uses many techniques to build, code and design skilled robots.
Six years ago, ISB had no robotics classes or clubs until a group of kids went to the PTA and requested some Vex(VRC) parts. VEX Robotics is a robotics program for elementary through university students and a subset of Innovation First International. It started in 2018 and has grown more famous over the past years. Every year VEX announces a new topic/goal at the end of April. This year the challenge was called "spin up," where teams built robots that could shoot discs into high goals and spin rollers placed around the field.
ISB won this year's tournament, and both teams got selected for the world championship in Dallas. This year ISB completely dominated the tournament, where the ISB won the skills challenge by over 200 points and placed in the top 100 of the world! However, this was not the first time ISB won the Thai national tournament. ISB also won last year's tournament in 2019 and many design and excellence awards.
Teams going to Dallas: Team B - Min Rungsinaporn, Pan Pitpreecha, Kris Pornsirikul, Ken Terdprisant, Peak Chairatn, Run Jongsuebchoke, Pun Pun Israpanich. Team D - Navin Kasemtanakul, Shen Dynes, Jonathan Lomantagne-Kratz, Kekoa Olive, Alex Li, , Friend Sukparangsee, Ranveer Daga, Yoshi Isobe, DK Kwak, Ash Narayan. Coaches: Sarah Steward, Peter Kratz, Ram Mahadevan, Anthony Giles