Students showcase STEM skills with custom-built robots
Students from Hamilton Heights Middle School (HHMS) join more than 4,000 middle school VEX IQ Competition students and mentors at the 2023 VEX Robotics World Championship this week for the VEX IQ Competition Slapshot tournament, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation. The competition is taking place in Dallas, Texas.
The action-packed event features more than 800 teams who will collaborate with other schools in a series of back-to-back robot challenges, made possible by many different sponsors. Participants strive to succeed by strategically executing the game VEX IQ Competition Slapshot, with robots they designed, built, and programmed using VEX IQ.
Slapshot is one in a series of events taking place throughout the year. VEX Competitions represent the world’s largest and fastest-growing competitive robotics programs for elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges. There are more than 23,000 VEX teams from 58 countries that participate in over 2,300 events worldwide. The competition season culminates each spring with the VEX Robotics World Championship, a highly anticipated event that unites top qualifying teams from local, state, regional, and international VEX IQ Competition events who strive to secure the title of World Champions.
HHMS has three teams that qualified for the World Championship: Teams 214C (Alayna Kauffman, Dylan Bryan, Johanna Lecher, Kennedy Dreher, Kaiden Lawson and Austin Kappes), 214D (Reece Blanton, Olivia Higgins, Illiana Bowyer, Nash Biddle and Ethan Miller) and 214G (Noah Heuer, Levi Heuer, Selah Heuer, Levi VanAlstine, and Kaelynn Fidler).
“Watching students experience the joy of bringing a robot from simple design renderings to the competition field is quite an amazing feat,” HHMS Robotics Coach Lacy Bowyer said. “To do so in such a short period, with the ability to meet up at a VEX IQ Competition event to compete with your peers and learn from each other is truly inspiring. This event will prepare students with the skills they need to become tomorrow’s leading innovators.”
The VEX IQ Competition serves as a vehicle for students to develop critical life skills, such as teamwork, ingenuity, and project management. These skills are honed through building robots and collaborating with like-minded students from the community.
More information about the VEX IQ Competition is available at RoboticsEducation.org.