KIWIBOTS INVADE DALLAS

June 1, 2010

I very much enjoyed an evening last week with three dozen Kiwi secondary school students still flush with excitement from three days well spent in Dallas, TX, where they tore up the VEX Robotics Competition World Championship.

Each year VEX Robotics, Inc. of Texas runs a sort of high tech world cup for robots that students build and program themselves using VEX’s design system. Supported in part by NASA, this year’s championship event included approximately 400 teams – a total of 3,000 secondary and tertiary school students – from 14 countries around the world. The video below from last year’s Championship will give you the general idea. (This year’s video isn’t up yet.)

Two of this year’s three Grand Champions in the secondary school division are from New Zealand – the teams from the Home School of Albany and from Kristin School of North Shore.

Both schools won awards at the competition in addition to the Grand Championship. The Home School team took the Web Design Championship trophy and a prize for energy and passion. The Kristin School team won two prizes for its autonomous programming achievements.

Home Schoolers, a.k.a. Free Range Robotics.

Kristinites, a.k.a. The Doves.

Another New Zealand team, from Rangitoto College of North Shore, took the prestigious Computer Aided Design Championship trophy, as well as an award for extraordinary teamwork.

Rangitotoistas.

Yet another New Zealand team, Glenfield College of Auckland, received the Build Award for the craftsmanship and construction of its robot.

Glenfieldians.

Keep in mind that this was not a run-of-the-mill, small-time, backyard robot face off. Rather, the VEX program is the largest and fastest growing robotics competition series in the world, featuring 200 qualifying events involving 2,600 teams from 20 countries. So, to get to Dallas, the four Kiwibot brigades had to think smart, design creatively, and work exceptionally hard over the past year.

All that makes another achievement particularly impressive. The judges voted Matt Hamling of Rangitoto as number one – out of all 3,000 participants at the Championship – in computer aided design.

I was delighted to learn from one of my Kiwibot friends that a team from my home Los Angeles metro area – from Whitney High School of Cerritos – won the esteemed overall Design Award this year. Los Angeles-area teams have historically done well in the competition, with Grand Champions from Van Nuys and Woodland Hills in prior years, as well as first runners-up from Carson and the City of Los Angeles.

“Round Up,” the game for the 2010/2011 competition, has already been released, and it involves even more sophisticated challenges than this year’s “Clean Sweep” game. My new robo-friends, though, are undaunted. A model of the “Round Up” playing field was set up in the back of our reception room, and the students kept slipping away to study its layout and to buzz about design ideas.

The fun has a serious purpose. “We have a real problem worldwide,” Joel Carter, vice president of VEX’s parent company, told the Dallas Morning News. “We don’t have enough kids interested in math and science.” I couldn’t agree more with his assessment, which is why I wanted to support the Kiwibots’ expedition and meet the winners.

It is also why I so admire and appreciate all the support that the Kiwibots have gotten from Massey University (itself a perennial contender in the tertiary school division) and from all the parents who engage in waves of fundraising to finance participation and get the students to Texas.

VEX views the competition as teaching “critical life skills, including leadership, teamwork, and technical problem solving.” Paul Copiolo, VEX’s president, says, “Our commitment is to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and math education to get them excited about pursuing technology careers.”

In my eyes, that is a commitment worth acknowledging and applauding. Loudly. And from what I saw and heard last week, the program is succeeding marvelously.

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