Indy Vex Teams Head Out For Championships

The 8th annual VEX Robotics World Championship is this week in Louisville, Kentucky where Indianapolis schools will be well represented.

Twelve teams from Indy will  participate in the largest, and fastest growing, robotics competition in the world.  VEX IQ Coach at Paramount School of Excellence, Erica Fraizer, says this is her school’s second trip to the Championships and she hopes experience pays off.

"This year we have a better idea of what we're going into," says Frazier. "Last year it was all brand new so you get there and your in this huge convention center and there’s 105 middle school teams from around the world, there's 89 elementary teams from around the world."

Not to mention more than 600 high school teams that will be competing for a title.  Paramount is sending seven students, including 6th grader Clark Miller who says robotics fills a desire to tinker.

"I’ve always been interested in designing and creatively figuring out how this works and putting things together and taking things apart," says Miller.

And that’s the point of the competition, fostering in young people a passion for science, technology, engineering and math or STEM. The event also promotes teamwork, project management and problem solving.

This year students were challenged to develop a robot that could stack and place colored cubes.  On the state level, Paramount’s elementary team won the Design Award and the middle school team received the sought-after Excellence Award.