On Thursday, May 5 the Vaughn College Robotics Team competed against more than 70 national and international universities from across the globe at the VEX U Worlds Robotics Competition in Dallas, Texas. As a result of their efforts, they were awarded the Excellence Award. The Excellence Award is the highest honor presented in VEX competitions.
This award is presented to the team that judges want others to emulate and "best exemplifies overall excellence in building a high-quality robotics program." In order to be considered for the award, competing teams must submit an engineering notebook and rank high in the qualifications and robotic skills categories. In addition to this win, Vaughn also earned third place for the robotics skills champion category and automatically qualified for the VEX U Worlds Robotics Competition in 2023.
"The World Championship is a tough competition that only the top US regional and world champions are qualified to participate in," said Dr. Hossein Rahemi, chair of the engineering and technology department, who was onsite lending support to the team. "The team worked extremely hard again this year and we want to congratulate the members for keeping their standing as one of the top ranked competitors and best robotics teams in the world."
Vaughn's Robotics Team, nicknamed "VCAT," finished the qualifying rounds with a total of nine wins and only one loss to qualify for the 16-team playoff bracket. In round 16, the team defeated Mt. San Antonio College from Walnut, California. In the quarterfinals, VCAT defeated the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to advance to the semifinals. After an intense match, Vaughn lost to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville who ultimately advanced to the finals.
The 2023 VEX U Worlds Robotics Competition will be held in Dallas, Texas where VCAT will look to replicate their success.
VAUGHN COLLEGE: Founded in 1932, Vaughn College is a private, nonprofit four-year college that enrolls more than 1,400 students in master's, bachelor's and associate degree programs in engineering, technology, management and aviation on its main campus in New York City and online. The student-faculty ratio of 14 to 1 ensures a highly personalized learning environment.
Eighty-eight percent of Vaughn College graduates are placed in professional positions, 75 percent in a related field, or choose to continue their education within one year of graduation. In recent years, outside of a pandemic, Vaughn's outcomes for students typically average more than 95 percent and have been 99 percent, 98 percent and 97 percent for the three prior years.
The institution serves many first-generation college students and is recognized by the US Department of Education as a Hispanic- Serving institution. In a study conducted by The Equality of Opportunity Project, and reported in The New York Times, Vaughn was ranked number one in upward mobility nationwide.