photo by: Joselyn King

TRIADELPHIA — It’s stressful planning a tournament expected to attract nearly 1,000 people, but that didn’t stop JoJo Shay from having a big smile on her face Tuesday afternoon.

Shay, the innovation coordinator for Ohio County Schools, is the organizer for the Gateway To The West robotics tournament that kicks off today at The Highlands Sports Complex – with competition for middle school happening today and Thursday, and high school students taking over the arenas on Friday and Saturday.

The robots start rolling in the morning, and the tournament continues until about 4 p.m. each day.

There are 80 high school teams and 69 middle school teams signed up to compete, and they will come from 16 different states and “a few provinces from Canada,” according to Shay.

Each team consists of at least four students, and they are accompanied by coaches, parents and chaperones.

“Gateway To The West” is one of 26 VEX Robotics signature tournaments happening throughout the world, with tournament winners and those selected winners of excellence awards qualifying for the VEX Robotics World Championships in Dallas, Texas this spring.

Ohio County Schools hosted the inaugural “Gateway To The West” tournament last year and was applauded for its efforts.

“And year two goes better because you know what you’re doing,” Shay said. “Coming into a second year, it feels great to just kind of know exactly what we need and to be able to organize well so we can make today run smoothly.”

She learned from last year the school district needed a lot of containers to hold its equipment and supplies for the tournament, and “how to get it where needed on day one.”

“It seems like today is going very well,” Shay continued. “We have our tech department here helping, our operations department is helping, and so are people from the central office. It’s a total team effort.”

One of the stations being set up on Tuesday was the volunteer check-in. Shay said about 50 volunteers are needed to make the tournament go.

“Some are judges, some are scorekeepers,” she continued. “There’s a lot of different jobs to do.”

The tournament will take over the entire gym area at The Highlands Sports Complex this year.

“It gives us more area in the pits to spread out the spaces the kids use when they are not competing,” Shay said. “We are able to pull the practice fields up to the front. Last year, we had them in the back. It’s really nice to be there and be able to get to the field fast.”

Early Tuesday afternoon, workers could be seen erecting the three elevated main arena stages that are required for a VEX Robotics signature tournament. These are where teams will compete.

In total, there are 11 arenas set up. In addition to the three main areas, there will be three skills fields, and five practice fields.

The work of Wheeling Park High School career and technical education (CTE) students is also present in the arena. Students created and printed out banners and other graphic designs that decorate the gym.

“The banners have just finished printing because we were out of school (most of the last two weeks),” Shay said.

Also, metal arts students at WPHS crafted the exquisite trophies that will be given to winners, and CTE students will be providing the food served in the hospitality room.

“They are helping us, and we’re helping them by showcasing their work,” Shay said. “It makes me very happy we can do that.”