(Written by Joe Nelson)
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — Fairmont State University is ready to host youth robotics teams from across the country as part of the bi-annual West Virginia Robotics Extreme (WVROX) endurance competition.
The 2024 iteration of the event will be hosted at the Falcon Center from Friday, August 2, through Saturday, August 3, where 30 teams will compete in an over-26-hour robotics endurance competition event. Fairmont State will host the event in cooperation with NASA’s Langley Research Center after it was hosted at West Virginia University in 2022. It will be free to attend for anyone who wishes to see some of the brightest minds build unique robotics projects.
“This year, we have shipped the event to the Fairmont State University Falcon Center,” said Fairmont State University Program Manager of NASA Education Resource Center Todd Ensign. “We’ll be utilizing the entire facility and additional gymnasiums, and we are so excited to have students from all over the eastern seaboard to compete,” he said.
Morgantown Area Robotics will be among the 30 teams that will compete in the WVROX competition, where teams from as far north as New York all the way down to the Gulf Coast will be a part of the endurance event. Team chairman Dr. Earl Scime expressed excitement to have the chance to see teams that have been a part of the competition for over ten years and will be seen in national tournaments that Morgantown Area Robotics competes in on an annual basis.
“Many of these teams we know (are) from all over the country, one of the teams from Mississippi has been coming to his event now for 10 years, and we’re really good friends,” said Scime. “It’s a small community, it’s a lot of fun, so we’re excited to see these teams and get to know some good teams,” he said.
As part of the friendly characteristics of the over-one-day-long competition, each of the 30 teams will also help each other out if a group is falling behind. For Morgantown Area Robotics, they will bring multiple teams to WVROX with high school students in each grade level, where any unoccupied team members will offer to assists others throughout the 26 hour event. Daniel Han, who leads one of the teams for Morgantown Area Robotics, expects that each of the teams will have plenty of supplies with both students and team leaders willing to help one another.
“During competitions, we are always prepared in case things break, that’s what our pit team is always ready , and we also are always ready to help out other teams as well,” said Han.
Opening ceremonies will be free to attend before the public is asked to leave as each team begins their 26-hour of robotics building. Once the over-24-hour endurance challenge is complete, they will then present the projects to the public, with members of the NASA Langley Research Center judging the end product. As 30 robotics teams with some of the brightest high school students across the country come to the Mountain State, Morgantown Area Robotics and Fairmont State University encourage people to come down and show support.
“The event, as all of our events are, is free and open to the public,” said Ensign. “By 11:30, if they want to come on Friday to see the opening ceremonies, we have some keynote presentations by (Fairmont State) President Mike Davis and by the Deputy Director of the NASA Langley Research Center,” he said.