HOISINGTON — The Hoisington Middle School Robotics program will be taking on the world in May.

This year’s group has been a major contender this season, placing in the top five in all the local events they’ve entered, notes HMS Robotics instructor Anne Selfridge. 

At the Kansas state meet March 5 in Garden City, the HMS Cardinals swept the top four places, as well as earning a third place in skills and taking home the Judges Award.

HMS students Brody Rossman and Grady Crowdis, competing as team 67544A otherwise known as the CyberCards, took the state title with 84 points, their highest score of the season.

At its March regular meeting, the USD 431 school board approved a trip to Dallas for a squad of four students, for the Vex IQ World Championship May 8-10 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.

At the World Championships, dozens of qualified teams from across the country will gather in Dallas for four top-event challenges from elementary to university levels, presented by Northrop Grumman Foundation.

In the meantime, the HMS Robotics class is raising money for the trip.

“We are doing fundraisers and asking for business sponsors to help pay for the trip and registration fees,” Selfridge said.

Registration deadline for the Dallas event is April 15.

About Pitching In

The 2021-22 Vex IQ Challenge, Pitching In, is played on a 6-foot by 8-foot rectangular field. Two robots compete in the Teamwork Challenge as an alliance in 60-second teamwork matches, working collaboratively to score points. The object is to put as many of the 22 3-inch balls from the playing field into either high or low goals, with six points awarded for a high goal and two points for a low goal. Once the game-board corrals are cleared, additional endgame points are awarded for hanging robots on the high or low goals. Skills matches are either entirely driver-controlled or autonomous, with limited human interaction.