BrandywineBOTS Robotics competes in regional robot competition ahead of world championship

Anitra Johnson, Delaware News Journal
Updated ·2 min read

Hundreds of elementary and middle school students from the Delmarva region attended the VEX IQ Robotics Competition Sunday at Talley Middle School in Wilmington.

Hosted by BrandywineBOTS Robotics, the two-day VRC Regional Championships are competitive events through the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation. The organization uses the competition to advance technology and professional development in science, technology, engineering and math or STEM. BrandywineBOTS Robotics is actively promoting these programs within the local community with the goal of making STEM education accessible to students from all schools and communities.

Winners from this event and the upcoming DelMarVa “Over/Under” Regional Championship in March will head to the 2023-2024 World Championship in Dallas, Texas for what's billed as the largest robotics competition in the world.

The robotics program intends to promote teamwork and teach students critical thinking, project management and communication skills through the application of professional engineering practices. All robots must be designed to solve a defined problem with testing and optimization. They are also required to document their experience.

A team from UrbanPromise Wilmington, a satellite location for BrandywineBOTS Robotics, participated in the event on Sunday. Keyon Hollis, an 11-year-old student at Urban Promise Elementary Elementary School has been involved in the robotics program for two years. He and teammate John Paul Leonardo said they enjoy the program for the engineering challenges.

Keyon Hollis and John Paul Leonardo, sixth-grade students at Urban Promise Elementary in Wilmington, take a look at their robot on a break from competing at the VEX IQ Robotics Competition on Feb. 25, 2024.
Keyon Hollis and John Paul Leonardo, sixth-grade students at Urban Promise Elementary in Wilmington, take a look at their robot on a break from competing at the VEX IQ Robotics Competition on Feb. 25, 2024.

During the Teamwork challenge, an alliance of two teams operates two robots to score points in 60-second matches. Other matches test the participants' robot driving skills and their coding for autonomous function which enables the robot to act without direct human control.

The DelMarVa “Over/Under” Regional Championship will take place on Saturday, March 9 at the Ogletown Baptist Church Event Center in Newark.

The Robotics Education & Competition Foundation's VEX Competitions represent the largest and most rapidly expanding robotics engineering platform, comprising the VEX IQ Competition for Elementary & Middle School students and the VEX Robotics Competition for Middle School & High School students.

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Tournaments are held at regional, state, and national levels throughout the year. Only a small number of teams qualify for April's VEX Robotics World Championship.

You can contact reporter Anitra Johnson at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Urban Promise students compete in Delmarva VEX IQ Robotics Competition

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