STEM Educators Guide: Robotics: VEX Robotics

With VEX, teams of students are tasked with designing, programming and building a robot to play against other teams in a game-based engineering challenge. VEX provides an extensive online curriculum to support all aspects of building a VEX robot, including coding, engineering, and online quizzes. VEX V5 robots are often incorporated into Project Lead the Way (PLTW) and classroom challenges. For competitive teams, there are fewer tournaments available in the Midwest, however there are many competitions around the U.S. which culminate at the VEX Robotics World Championship each April.

• GRADE LEVELS: Four divisions. VEX IQ Challenge (Grades 4-8), VEX Robotics Competition (Grades 6-12), VEX U (Post-Secondary) and VEX AI Competition (High School and Post-Secondary)
• NEW SEASON STARTS: May
• COMPETITION SEASON: Fall & Winter. World Championships are in April.
• ROBOT SIZE: Medium
• TEAM SIZE: Unlimited. However, Average Team Size is 4-10 students. It is common for a single school to have multiple teams.
• COST: Medium. A reusable VEX Robot Kit is approximately $1,000 + Annual Registration and Game pieces of approximately $500 + Materials.