Vex Robotics New Zealand National Championships

On Saturday and Sunday (17th/18th February) four Robotics teams from PNBHS competed in the New Zealand National Vex Robotics Championship held in Auckland. There were mixed results in pool play with the team 2903S Palmy Steel of William Giles, Carter Fuldseth and Mackenzie Rate finishing the best of our teams - 15th out of 68 teams. Palmy Steel qualified for the knockout stages and was seeded as the 12th alliance out of 16. The knockout stages are played as a best of one format.

The round of 16 saw them defeat the 7th seeds (83 – 21) to proceed to the quarter finals against the team seeded second. They did exceptionally well again to outscore the opponents 119 - 52 and proceed to the semi-finals.

Unfortunately, they were beaten by the number 1 seeded alliance (68 – 152), who were the eventual winners of the competition. This is the best that one of our teams has done in many years. I continue to be amazed at the quality of the robots that our students produce each year.