Kids Battle It Out at Robotics Tournament

Nearly 500 people attended last weekend’s robotics tournament hosted and supported by the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT Dallas to encourage kids to try their hand at building and operating robots in a friendly but competitive environment.

“We are excited to report that the Dec. 5th UT Dallas Fearless Engineering VEX Robotics Competition was a success by every standard we set,” said Jack Nelson, the competition organizer and a teacher at Apollo Junior High School in Richardson.

Nearly three dozen teams competed at the tournament, including 21 middle school teams and 13 high school teams from as far away as Austin. Six teams qualified for the VEX world championship next April.

 

“We had diversity in numbers,” Nelson added. “Those 34 teams were made up of 110 students plus dozens of mentors, coaches and assistant coaches helping them out. This included students as young as 10, plus nearly a quarter of the students were female, and almost half of the students were non-Caucasian.”

 

The event also featured participation by the Dallas and Plano bomb squads, which showed off their own robots.

 

“We could not have done this without the very generous donations of UT Dallas, the U.S. Navy and a grant from the Native American Family Technology Journey,” Nelson concluded.

VEX Robotics sponsors numerous tournaments that use its robotics platform to teach students about science and engineering principles, teamwork and group problem-solving.