Robotics Rockstars: CO:bots Goes To Worlds
Written by Olivia Bell
Photos Contributed by Olivia Bell and Gina Wade
“We’ve just kept meeting every Thursday night and we’ve got kind of a world recognized team now.”
About eight years ago, students from all over Jackson, homeschool, public, and private school kids alike, gathered in theCO’s lobby awaiting the first night of theCO’s new VEX Robotics club, CO:bots. Started from the Jackson Area Robotics club that met at Liberty High School, CO:bots became a weekly meeting where students at various skill levels could learn to build robots and train to compete in competitions that test the robots in a new game each year.
Ben McCarver, a former CO:bots student, and his family and Rhodes Barnett, a member at theCO, were responsible for bringing the VEX Robotics club to theCO after realizing that students from all walks of life needed an outlet like this for their creativity and a steady space to do it in.
“At first it was really difficult to find a local opportunity for my student who was very STEM minded. His passion was math. And what do you do with a kid who loves math and science? As a parent I found it frustrating and that’s why I’ve been committed to making sure that we have something local for Jackson students. If my kid has this passion and talent here in Jackson, how many other kids do and what can I do to help facilitate that for them?” Kabao McCarver, CO:bots parent volunteer, judge, and recipient of the Inspiration All Star Award at the World Championship, said.
Gina Wade, a CO:bots parent volunteer and judge, gestured to the couch in the corner as she shared her first experience of coming to theCO on that fateful Thursday evening eight years ago.
“My college kid who’s sitting over there was in seventh grade at the time. We just came in and started playing around with robots and that was the beginning of it. And that year Ben managed to get himself to Worlds, which was a first for Jackson Area Robotics.”
With over 800 teams, 10 divisions, and 45 participating countries, The VEX Robotics World Championship is the most prestigious competition in the program. To qualify, students must win enough local tournaments to make it to the State Championship (or regional competition) where they compete to be a finalist. The two finalists make it to Worlds. Although this is the main way that students can get to the World Championship, there are a few other ways that individuals and teams can qualify.
“Our 2775V team qualified for Worlds, I want to say, three or four different ways last year,” Gina said.
Sam McCarver, Ben McCarver’s younger brother, now acts as 2775V’s (the CO:bots’ most successful team) captain and serves as a jack of all trades for the team: engineer, builder, and “driver extraordinaire.” The 2775V team alone has made it to the World Championship three times.
“The idea that our little local club can be so competitive just proves to me that we have the talent, we have the kids with the interest, and we have the resources right here to provide these international opportunities to our students,” Kabao said.
As I sat in the event space in the back of theCO, listening to the sound of clanking metal and watching students plan their winning strategies, Gina went on to show me photos from the 2024 World Championship hosted in Dallas, Texas this April. She explained that a small club in West Tennessee making it this far in the competition is kind of a bigger deal than some people might think. However, what’s a bigger deal is that CO:bots has sent at least one team to the World Championship each year for as long as they have been at theCO.
“This is the Dome, where they got to compete. Because they made it to the Dome, that is in and of itself kind of a thing,” Gina said. “And this is one of our kids signing a yellow hard hat. Yellow hard hats are our signature and the kids were bringing yellow hard hats to have them signed.”
After qualifying for the World Championship, becoming the Division Champions of the Arts Division, and making it to the Dome with the nine other standing teams, 2775V made it all the way to quarter-finals this year. The team also received the Amaze Award, which is given to a team with a high performing robot in both skills and match play.
Though the World Championship certainly encourages students to learn skills needed for engineering and building complicated robots in order to win, it also encourages them to learn skills necessary to succeed in life.
“Naturally, the kids that are attracted to this kind of activity are very STEM minded. The students design, build, and program their own robots and compete with them,” Kabao said. “But what I love about this program is that there’s also a very cerebral part of the process called the Engineering Notebook, where they log and record the whole process of what they’ve done to get to their final creation. Part of that process is an interview. It helps make our students more well rounded. They’re more articulate when they have participated in this program and they are confident and brave in a world that doesn’t tend to foster much confidence and bravery for a lot of these kinds of students.”
CO:bots meets at 5 p.m. every Thursday in theCO’s event space and is open to all middle school and high school students who are interested in learning about robotics.
“Right here in Tennessee we have some robotics rockstars, whether people know about it or not,” Kabao said.