Written by: Ainsley Hall and published in The Martinsburg Journal on APRIL 11, 2025, link to the article HERE.
MARTINSBURG — Martinsburg South Middle School’s VexIQ Robotics team, the Mechanical Maniacs, is headed to the world championships for the third year in a row.
The competition will take place May 6-14 in Dallas, Texas, where teams from all over the world will gather to compete. Members of Mechanical Maniacs include eighth graders Leah Miller, Cameron Smith, Olive Bird, Kolton Cole, Olivia Campbell and Jackson Painter. The team is led by Cindy Evarts and Sharon Mason.
Every year in VexIQ Robotics, there is a new challenge students must complete. They build a robot designed to complete the required tasks and collect as many points as possible. This year, the challenge is called “Rapid Relay,” where teams try to score goals, while also passing the ball to their teammate to score even more points.
The Mechanical Maniacs teams up with another group, and they must strategize and work together to win.
During the state competition, there was a point when the students weren’t sure they were going to make it to worlds. Before lunch, they were in 11th place and were having a hard time staying positive. However, by working together and changing their mindset, they were able to pick themselves up and get back on track to make it to the top.
This year, the Mechanical Maniacs’ goal is to at least make it to the division finals. Last year, the team members made it to the finals, but their robot broke right before the last games. They couldn’t figure out how to fix it and were forced to quit the competition. This time, they hope to change things around to participate in the finals this year.
“It’s important to us that we do better than we did last year,” Painter said. “It’s good to see our hard work pay off. We all take this very seriously.”
At the world competition, the students get to meet other kids like them from all over the world and team up with them during the competition. They often must use a translator to plan out their strategy and connect with other teams.
Evarts shared that as a teacher, she believes that being able to meet people from other countries and experience a small part of their culture is one of the biggest benefits for the students.
“It’s an incredible learning experience,” Evarts said. “I think it’s even more important than the actual robotics.”
The students all agreed that their favorite part about being a part of the robotics team is spending time with each other and becoming close friends. After spending hours together practicing and building their robots for three years, they’ve all grown really close.
Cole shared that he also enjoys meeting new people.
“I’ve made a lot of new friends through robotics,” Cole said. “Before I joined, I wanted to be a cop in the future, but now I want to be an engineer.”
This year will be the last year they will be able to compete in this age division before heading to high school. They are currently raising funds to travel to Texas.
To support the team, visit HERE.