Spark Academy is sending two teams to the VEX Robotics World Championship for the first time. They will be competing in the high school division on April 25-27 in Dallas, TX.
To prepare for the VRC tournaments held throughout the season, each team worked together to design, build, and program a robot that could quickly and efficiently solve specific challenges that come with playing this year’s game, called Spin Up.
Each week, students apply what they’ve learned about STEM in the classroom to build these semi-autonomous machines. An equally important set of skills is learned through the competitions -- communication, project management, time management, and teamwork.
Since the NH/VT VEX State Championship in late February, the teams have redesigned and rebuilt their robots again in preparation for Worlds. There they will meet teams of high school students from countries such as Colombia, Thailand, Finland, Puerto Rico, Morocco, Singapore, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Australia, Nigeria, South Korea, Bahrain, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom as well as the USA, Canada, and Mexico.
For the fourth-year students who lost two seasons of competition due to COVID, this is the last opportunity for them to experience the VEX World Championship together. The families started a GoFundMe to defray travel costs, which can be found at https://gofund.me/6f63814c
Spark Academy utilizes the VEX IQ platform to teach first-year students a college-level Introduction to Robotics class as part of its Advanced Manufacturing pathway. The chartered public high school is located on the campus of Manchester Community
College and offers dual credit via Early College with a focus on Advanced Manufacturing and Mechatronics.
