Cal Poly’s Gear Slingers dominate VEX U Robotics Competition, earn spot in international tournament 

Cal Poly’s VEX U robotics team, Gear Slingers, is qualified for this year’s international VEX U robotics competition happening from April 25 to May 3. 

VEX U is a robotics program for college and university students around the world. In March, 16 schools attended Cal Poly’s robotics team competition and each year students are given a new challenge and must design robots that can properly complete that challenge. 

Here at Cal Poly, Gear Slingers has been designing and constructing two robots since May 2023 in preparation for this event. Gear Slingers went 11 to zero in all the day’s matches, making them undefeated in all California competitions.

Timothy Hunter, the team’s mechanical lead and junior mechanical engineering major, said that he enjoys the process from the beginning design stages to competition.

“I really like the engineering design process, like just going from idea to prototype to first design to build to second design,” Hunter said. “I just really enjoy that process and working with everyone to try and optimize our robots.”

At the competition, robots competed in qualification and skills matches. Based on their robot’s performance and how many points they scored, teams are ranked and placed in a tournament tree. Team members, such as project lead Garret Schnack, a junior mechanical engineering major, were able to see months of hard work pay off. 

“I have some really passionate teammates,” Schnack said. “It’s really awesome to be able to collaborate with everyone and build a product that we’re really proud of. We’re all very competitive and we are all extremely passionate about what we do.” 

Teams that have accumulated the most points in the matches qualify for the international VEX U robotics competition in April. As tournament champions, Gear Slingers will be in attendance.

“The biggest, most crazy event of the year and we’re really excited,” Schnack said.

The international competition will be held at The Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas.