COSAM News Articles 2019 June S.C.O.R.E. Hosts VEX IQ Day Camp to Ready Competitors

S.C.O.R.E. Hosts VEX IQ Day Camp to Ready Competitors

Published: 06/25/2019

The week of June 10 marked the second year that the Southeastern Center of Robotics Education (S.C.O.R.E.) hosted the VEX IQ Day Camp for fourth, fifth and sixth graders.

Throughout the week, teams of students excitedly built and engineered their robots, which cultivated in a competition at the end of the week.

Tj Nguyen said the camp goes along with the annual VEX IQ robotics competition. Each year the students compete with their robots to complete a variety of tasks during a timed competition. A different theme is part of the games each year, this year’s theme is titled “Squared Away” and the game pieces include balls and cubes.

“They have to place cubes on the platforms and to score additional points they put balls on the cubes in the scoring positions,” Nguyen said. “They’re manipulating different objects in this game. It’s different game pieces and different objectives, which forces different designs.”

Nguyen said that the robots that excelled at last year’s game, would not excel at the new game.

“Last year’s robots had to be light and efficient since they had to move their entire robot onto a bar,” he said. “I think you’ll see bigger robots this year, or at least heavier robots since they don’t have to lift things as high. So, this camp is really the first look most kids get at the next VEX IQ game.”