FAIRMONT, WV — On Friday, March 10, Fairmont State University hosted the seventh annual VEX University Robotics Competition in the Falcon Center. The event was organized by NASA IV & V Education Research Center and sponsored by the NASA Robotics Alliance Project, Fairmont State University Office of the President, A3L Federal Works, Aurora Flight Sciences, and the NASA Space Grant Consortium.
This event brought together nine robotics teams representing notable universities that competed for various awards and two seats in the World Robotics Championship to be held in Austin, Texas at the end of April 2023, according to a news release.
Fairmont State’s Robotics Team was represented by students: freshmen Bradley Leonard, (a freshman majoring in Computer Science), Jacob Bonner (sophomore, Electronics), Arrington Bucklew (junior, Electronics), and faculty mentor Musat Crihalmeanu, Associate Professor of Electronics Technology at Fairmont State.
The Fairmont State University Robotics team qualified 4th placing in front of West Virginia University (Morgantown), Liberty University (Lynchburg, VA), USM at Southern Maryland (California, MD), and Baltimore University (Baltimore, MD).
Fairmont State’s Robotics team received positive rankings in the “Driving an Autonomous Robot” sections of the competition and in the “Skills” section of the contest. Fairmont State’s Robotics team is also ranked 24th on the world list.
Prior to this event, the newly started Fairmont State Robotics team showed promise in two qualifying events hosted by Northern Kentucky University (Highland Heights, KY), and Salisbury University (Salisbury, MD) where the team won second place out of six participating teams, and also received the Judges Award.
To learn more about VEX Robotics and other upcoming competitions, visit www.vexrobotics.com.
