ASK Academy robotics team finishes top 10 in national competition

DALLAS, Texas — The ASK Academy’s robotics team, the “Code Crafters,” finished ninth in the Best Robotics Championships in Dallas, Texas, Dec. 7, 2024.

Members of the Code Crafters included sixth grader Mia Whetten, sixth grader Mathias Garcia, and seventh grader Derrick Opie.

The competition featured more than 100 high school teams, and the Code Crafters were one of two middle school teams to compete.

“We have to do certain tasks to score points. We had to collect a tennis ball to a certain place, back up into certain things, and then we had to make sure a little toy astronaut stayed in its seat,” said Whetten, who was the pit stop person during the competition. “For our inspiration, it was a space thing, so we were kind of going for a rover idea for the design of our robot.”

The Code Crafters traveled all throughout New Mexico with their rover-esque Vex V5 robot named “Tobey1.” Their travels took them to Roswell, Hobbs, Las Cruces and then, to Dallas, Texas.

“It was very fun going over talking to all the high school teams, learning from them. The course was cool, too; it was based on ‘If a station was on the moon,’” said Opie, who wrote the research paper and helped build the robot.

During local competition, the Code Crafters won the prestigious “Founders Award.”

“I’ve learned a lot of things,” Garcia said, who was a driver and spotter on the team. “It was really cool to go places I never thought of going to.”

While in Dallas, the team got to sight-see a little bit and visited some nearby science museums.

The Code Crafters were led by team leader Catherine Noble, who is also the instructor for the eighth-grade engineering class.

Noble, a 2019 graduate of Cleveland High School, competed nationally and then internationally in Japan. She even sat on the Robo Rave International Board from 2015-2020.

“In eighth grade, we got fourth in the United States. Then we were invited to go to the world championships, so we traveled to Japan my freshman year in high school to compete,” Noble said.

“I get to teach what I love to do, and it has been super enriching and amazing,” Noble said.