Desert Ridge's Geared Up team wins VEX Robotics state championship

March 23, 2023 by Seth Polansky, AZPreps365


Geared Up proudly showing off the groups's championship hardware. (Wendi Harden photo/Desert Ridge High School)

Geared Up, a robotics team from Desert Ridge High School, became the state champions of the 2022-23 Arizona Interscholastic Association High School State VEX Robotics Tournament, which was held March 10-11 at Desert Ridge. The competition for high school students from around the state was hosted by the AIA and VEX Robotics.

This is the second consecutive year that a robotics team from Desert Ridge has won the state title. The tournament featured a total of 51 teams representing the best and highest-ranked robotics teams from Arizona member schools.

The top finishers in the Arizona tournament, in both the head-to-head and the robotics skills portions, will now compete at the Vex World Robotics Competition scheduled to be held from April 24-28 in Dallas. That global event will host high school robotics teams from the U.S. and several different countries. The participants in these events will be the future leaders in STEM programs around the world.

Video of the final match https://youtu.be/195wbsXoMd0 from Desert Ridge with the score being 181-180.

Sponsor support for the AIA state championships include Barrett Foundation, Sanghi Foundation, Raytheon, SRP, Ottawa University, and Avnet.