COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KRHD) — The Texas A&M Vex Robotics team is designing, building, and testing robots at the Axel Box tech firm in preparation for the upcoming World Championships, but the students need community support to fund their 800-mile trip to St. Louis.
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The team consists of over 40 people. At the World Championships, team WHOOP will compete in the VEX U Design Division, and team WHOOP8 will compete in the Research Division.
"It's almost entirely on us to plan the logistics fundraise and uh be able to get a group of 40 young Aggie engineers to another state like Saint Louis. Previous years the World Championship was in Dallas, which was a lot easier logistically to be able to configure, but," Board Secretary Evert Guzman said.
The team is coming off recent victories, including a 44-22 win over the University of Texas Robotics Team "GHOST," a 45-34 victory over Queen's University, and a 61-22 win over the University of Puerto Rico.
Students often work all night to have their robots ready for competition. The skills they learn and apply are also helping their future careers.
"Done internships with Traxs North America connected to Axelbox where I built an electric construction vehicle. You know how many people get to say that they've done that in general and, you know, in college doing that as an internship. Project Management Academy will definitely helped me," Graduate Advisor 'Cougar' Styles said.
"I got a, research position at the Cyclotron Institute recently thanks to those abilities I've gained from robotics," Project Manager for team WHOOP Jesus Trejo said.
The program has made a lasting impact in the community, with college peers helping high school teams grow and learn.
"So do a lot of outreach and uh community volunteering, uh, Team Wop and Aggie Robotics as a whole, we volunteer at Vex robotics events throughout the state," Guzman said.
At previous World Championships, the robotics team made sure to bring the Aggie spirit and fight with them.
"We bring the spirit of Aggie with us to worlds, so our current president, Michael Hesseltine, he'll dress up in the all white yell leader outfit and he'll lead yells before each match. We'll do one yell. So he'll get up there, do the whole thing. We're packing the stands and we're, we're doing it just as if it was a Kyle Field football game," Styles said.
The university is also hosting several other engineering events this month. The Turtle Robotics Showcase takes place Friday, April 17 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Zachry Engineering Education Complex. The SAE Racing Rollout is Sunday, April 19 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Aggie Park. The Turtle Hatchling Competition is Saturday, April 25 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Wisenbaker Engineering Building.
The team has set up a GoFundMe page to help reach their fundraising goal. The World Championships will be streamed live at vexworlds.tv.
GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/whoop-to-worlds
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