NOTRE DAME ROBOTICS GOES TO WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

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May 20, 2021

For information on enrollment and registration at Notre Dame, please visit the admissions section of our website here.

A middle school team from Notre Dame qualifies as one of only four alliances globally to compete Saturday for a world title.

On Wednesday, May 19, a Notre Dame Middle School robotics team qualified for the VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) world championship, which will be held virtually this Saturday, May 22. They will compete against four other teams to determine who is the best in the world. 

Killer Bees Team 3333W, comprised of Kevin Carter (7), Brooklyn Haddad (8) and Dino Acciavatti (7), earned their spot in the championship as a result of their semifinal performance this week.

"On Monday of this week, the virtual event was divided into a morning session and an afternoon session to accommodate all of the time zones," said Louise Palardy, NDPMA's STEM specialist and manager of the robotics center. "Our team went undefeated with a 3-0 record. Qualification matches finished Tuesday and we ended with a 7-0 record and were seeded No. 1 in our division."

Palardy said the team chose a team from Singapore to align with and yesterday that alliance won their division and competed against an alliance that won the other morning division and beat them as well.

VEX Robotics Competition is an international school robotics competition for middle and high school students. In VRC, typically there are three or four students per team and each school can field numerous teams.

"The VRC finals will be this Saturday, May 22, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., and will be live-streamed on YouTube," Palardy said. "We are one of only four alliances in the entire world to compete in the finals. I am so proud of our kids."

More on VEX Robotics Competition (VRC): VEX Robotics Competition is a robotics competition for registered middle and high school teams which utilizes the VEX V5 Construction and Control System. In this competition, teams design, build and program robots to compete at tournaments. At tournaments, teams participate in qualifying matches where two randomly chosen alliances of two teams each compete for the highest team ranking. Before the elimination rounds, the top-ranking teams choose their permanent alliance partners, starting with the highest ranked team, and continuing until the alliance capacity for the tournament is reached. The new alliances then compete in an elimination bracket, and the top two alliances in the bracket qualify for the overall Michigan competition.

For information on enrollment and registration at Notre Dame, please visit the admissions section of our website here.

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About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. Notre Dame Preparatory School enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower schools enroll students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight. All three schools are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the National Association of Independent Schools. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school’s home page at www.ndpma.org.