2024 - 2025 Season: High Stakes
In my second season of VEX Robotics, our team achieved another milestone by qualifying for the World Championship for the first time in school history. I expanded my programming skills significantly, incorporating odometry to improve autonomous routines and developing algorithms for color sorting.
At one competition, we won our first-ever Judged Award — the Innovate Award — for mapping out our field coordinates to design and optimize our autonomous program. This season marked a major step forward in both our team’s technical capabilities and my own growth as a programmer and problem solver.
Technical Advancements
During the High Stakes season, I focused on pushing our programming to a new level of precision and functionality. Building on what I learned from Over Under, I switched to LemLib, a powerful odometry and motion control library. With LemLib, I implemented real-time position tracking that allowed the robot to follow smooth, accurate paths across the field. This marked our team’s first use of full odometry-based navigation, making autonomous runs far more consistent.
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I also developed a color-sorting algorithm to help the robot identify and organize game elements efficiently. Using sensors and conditional logic, the robot could detect ball colors and sort them automatically — an especially useful skill for the High Stakes game, where controlling specific game pieces was critical.
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Behind the scenes, I restructured our entire PROS codebase to make it more modular and easier to maintain. Subsystems like the drivetrain, intake, and color sorter were separated into distinct files, allowing faster debugging and iteration. I also tuned multiple PID controllers to balance speed and precision, which helped us refine our autonomous performance throughout the season.
Innovation and Awards
The High Stakes season marked a turning point for our team’s approach to engineering and design. We began applying data-driven thinking not only in programming but also in how we planned and tested our autonomous routines. To make the most of our odometry system, we mapped our field coordinates and used them to calculate precise movement paths — a method that helped us visualize and fine-tune our strategies before ever running the robot.
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This process earned us the Innovate Award at one of our competitions, the first judged award in our team’s history. The judges recognized our use of advanced software tools, coordinate mapping, and systematic documentation to create an intelligent and adaptable autonomous system.
Worlds Experience
Representing Team 38535A (Titantron) at the 2024 VEX Worlds Championship was one of the most memorable parts of the season. It was our first time ever qualifying for Worlds, which made it especially exciting.
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At Worlds, I had the chance to meet and collaborate with teams from all over the world. I spoke in three languages—English, Chinese, and French—to communicate and exchange ideas with teams from Taiwan, Canada, and many other countries. Meeting teams from Taiwan, where I’m from, was especially meaningful; it showed how robotics can connect people across borders. The experience reminded me that while I was there to compete, engineering is important because of its ability to build bridges between cultures.
Outreach and Cultural Exchange
During the High Stakes season, I created a video for middle school students in Taiwan to introduce English and high school life in the U.S. For the video, I filmed one of my track meets and documented a VEX tournament, giving students a firsthand look at how extracurriculars shape a student’s experience. The video not only helped them learn English but also offered insight into American student life and STEM opportunities.
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Through this project, I was able to share my passion for robotics and technology across cultures and languages. It also gave me a chance to reflect on how my STEM experiences can inspire and connect students abroad, showing the global reach of engineering and education.
Reflection
The High Stakes season was a major step forward in both my technical and personal growth. I advanced my programming with LemLib odometry, PID tuning, and color sorting, which improved our autonomous precision.
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Qualifying for the VEX World Championship for the first time allowed me to meet teams from around the world, including students from Taiwan, and communicate in Chinese and French, showing how robotics can connect people across cultures.
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Creating a video for middle school students in Taiwan combined STEM with outreach, inspiring younger students and reflecting on how my experiences can have impact beyond competitions.
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Overall, the season taught me about growth, collaboration, and using technology to learn, teach, and connect, laying the foundation for my next season with Titan McQueen (38535K).
