Daniel Teague – LookingOutwards01

During my time at my high school, I was friends a number of people who were on the VEX Robotics team. VEX Robotics is a competition sport where a team divides itself into various groups, each one of which works to design, build, test, and ultimately pilot a robot. The criteria for the competition changes each year, and the competitors must constantly improve and test their designs. As a continuous and evolving sport and project, I was always somewhat fascinated by this, especially as technologies related to robotics, programming, and Artificial Intelligence (there is an autopilot phase for each match) become more advanced and more important to our everyday lives. It also introduced me to the possibility and area of robotic sports, where robots or remote controlled machines are piloted in the pursuit of some goal/objective. VEX Robotics shows how programming is affecting more than just computers and may soon have very tangible impacts in our everyday lives.