PC BOE Presentation April 16, 2024
Presentation Agenda
General Program Description
The competition robotics program at Northern Middle School is an extracurricular club that meets twice a week after school and fields VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) conforming robots for competition play.
Competition play is conducted by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation (REC Foundation).
VEX Robotics Competitions (VRC)
REC Foundation
“The Robotics Education & Competition Foundation is a global non-profit organization dedicated to increasing student engagement in science, technology, engineering, math (STEM), and computer science by engaging students in hands-on, curriculum-based robotics programs. Through comprehensive initiatives encompassing competitions, education, and workforce readiness, the foundation empowers educators to inspire and equip students for success.”
“ The REC Foundation’s VEX family of robotics programs for elementary school through college students includes 1.1 million students in 70 countries. These engaging programs offer a direct response to workforce and industry needs with participants more likely to consider studying science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) beyond high school.”
Northern Middle Robotics participates in VRC tournaments conducted by the REC Foundation on designated Saturdays throughout the state of Kentucky beginning in early November and lasting until the last of April each calendar year.
During a typical season NMS visits schools such as:
This past competition season Northern Middle School’s Robotics Program (NMS_RP) participated in nine (9) regular season tournaments and concluded with a State Tournament playoff.
Typically the NMS_RP fields around 25-30 students arranged annually into 5 to 8 individualized robotic teams. Teams are made up of 3-4 students. Numbers in program and on teams vary depending on the numbers of participating students.
Meetings for this competition season were after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays till around 5:30pm.
The Game and Engineering Design Problem
A typical competition robotics season runs from late summer (start sometime in July) to late April.
Every year VRC participants are given a different game setup with a unique engineering problem designed into the game setup.
This years VRC game was called - VRC Over Under.
Students research, plan, design, build, document, program, and compete with their game design solution.
Program Startup/History
The genesis for the robotics program at Northern Middle was started somewhat as an afterthought to a search for extra instruction equipment for the PLTW robotics classroom.
Sidenote
VEX Robotics, a subsidiary of Innovation First International, out of Greenville, TX, is the preferred robotics instruction material for PLTW for their robotics curriculum.
Founders of IFI, VEX Robotics, and the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation (REC).
Structure of Robotic League and Companies
Innovation First International (Parent Company)
-> VEX Robotics, Inc. (For Profit)
-> Rack Solutions, Inc. (For Profit)
-> Robotics Education and Competition Foundation (Non-Profit)
To aid in teaching one of the core classes in the Middle School PLTW Curriculum, in the school year of 2014-15, Mr. Turner applied for and received a grant from the REC Foundation.
The grant provided one (1) extra VEX robotic brain (V4 Cortex) for classroom and competition use.
The only stipulation was that the recipient of the brain had to field a VEX Robotics Competition (VRC) team in the next robotics season.
V4 Robotic Brain - Cortex
Beginning in the school year 2015-16, Northern Middle School began fielding VEX Robotics Competition Teams.
Nothing But Net was that year’s game and as you may image, we had no idea what we were getting into, had a lot of fun, learned allot, made state, but advanced no further.
Since then we have dramatically improved. Below is link to the history of VRC games and a link to NMS_RP season competition record.
New system - V5
The Cortex system was introduced in the 2010-2011 VRC season and was the dominant control system in VRC up until the 2018-2019 season when V5 was introduced.
V5 (current platform that NMS_RP uses) was introduced in the 2018-2019 VRC season, and will likely remain the dominant control system in VRC until VEX releases a new microcontroller for VRC.
Programming for VRC
Students are offered two standards that they can program in for their VRC experience - VEXcode Blocks or VEXcode Pro (MS Visual Code Extension).
Beginning programmers are offered VEXcode Blocks and more experienced programmers are offered VEXcode Pro.
Students are free to move between the two at their level of comfortability.
VEXcode Blocks
VEXcode Blocks is a block-based programming environment that focuses more on the logical processes of programming in a structured environment.
Students are not overwhelmed by the nuances of textual based programming but are able to quickly get a program up and running. This gives the aspiring programmers a tremendous boost of confidence.
The blocks environment however, via a tradeoff of sorts, is somewhat limited in the level of control it affords the programmer.
VEXcode Pro (MS Visual Extension)
Students considering a career in coding, and who have become proficient in textual coding, will benefit from learning the tools used by professional coders.
VS Code enables us to align ourselves with the tools used by 75% of industry professionals, as an extension of Microsoft's Visual Studio Code.
The VEX VS Code extension will allow users to use production quality tools seamlessly with VEX hardware.
Both C++ and Python can be utilized as languages for IQ (2nd gen), EXP and V5, and tools like AI Copilot and Git can be integrated as well.
Worlds 2023
Last season NMS_RP reached the VRC Middle School Worlds - the 2023 VEX International Robotics Championship. This was the only the 2nd time in the history of the program that NMS Robotics had received an invitation to Worlds.
We were shocked and a little overwhelmed as were in a rebuilding phase of the program after having been closed for two seasons for COVID. Usually to have successful program requires a couple of years to build in some veteran knowledge of the game and the whole tournament experience.
We were lucky enough to have great group of talented 6th grade boys and girls that worked hard and won right away. This group went out and won an early season mixed high school and middle school tournament to secure a bid to State and give us a leg to seizing an ‘open’ spot for Worlds.
We want to express our appreciation again to the PC Board of Education for their overwhelming support for our efforts and the extra help you provided for out trip - “Thank you”.
Please visit our website to see pictures from our trip: NMS_RP Worlds 2023. And an experience that many of students will never forget.
Worlds 2024
This season built on the momentum generated from the excitement of last year. We fielded eight (8) robotic teams this year - with six (6) of the eight teams qualifying for the Kentucky Middle School State Championship.
Additionally we had teams winning the: Design, Create, and Judges Awards at tournaments throughout the state.
Team 650C “the Captains” via: winning the Create and Judge’s Awards this season, finishing in the top 5% of mixed high school and middle school competition play in five (5) tournaments, and going as far as the quarterfinal round in the Kentucky Middle School State Championship, was awarded an invitation to Worlds 2024!
We would like to request for the PC Board of Education’s help in our efforts to attend the 2024 VRC Worlds!
I will now turn the presentation over to the members of Team 650C. Any questions for myself or about the program and I will be available after their presentation.
Any Questions?