Vex Robotics National Championships 2025

Vex Robotics National Championships 2025

Stokesley School
Vex Robotics National Championships 2025

After a fabulous joint win at the Regional Finals at Whickham School in February, Matthew, Scott and Charlie travelled to the Telford International Centre for the Vex Robotics National Championships, with Mrs Hope, Mrs March-Shawcross and their 6th form mentor, Rowan Airey. 60 teams from schools around the UK, from as far as Livingston in Scotland and Canterbury in Kent, came to compete in a team robot challenge involving hitting targets and scoring goals with soft yellow balls in a small arena. Each round was 60 seconds long, with a driver changeover in the middle, and consisted of passing the ball between robots then scoring through 4 different targets. Our teams’ robot consistently scored goals and passed to other teams, but the standard of the other robots was really exceptional. Some schools had multiple teams, with various adaptations which included pneumatically driven mechanisms for speed and accuracy, allowing them to launch two balls at a time and hit two targets simultaneously. Matthew in Y9 demonstrated remarkable coding skills under significant time pressure to rapidly re-code the automatic drive and launch programme needed for the autonomous driving skills section of the competition. Scott and Matthew were cool under pressure whilst being filmed in front of the audience on the main screen manoeuvring the robot and consistently scoring goals in every match. Charlie kept the team supplied with ammunition, working well with his opposite number from the other team to get the ball from the scoring zone back to the re-entry point with speed and enthusiasm. The team were able to work with other young people to develop game strategies before each match to try to maximise points scored using the features of their robots. By the end of the second day, the team had scored 395 points, with the high point being a match working with the Ambition team from King Henry VIII School in Coventry to score 82 points together. The team finished 29th in their league in the teamwork challenge and 51st in the driving and coding skills challenge. We are very proud of their achievement. We would like to thank the Stokesley School Parent, Teacher and Friend Association, Analox Group and the Science Department for sponsoring the team to enable them to take up their invitation to the National Championships, without your generosity, we would not be able to offer these fantastic opportunities to our students. We would like to build on the success of this year by expanding the club. If you would be interested in mentoring our students to develop their engineering or coding skills or be able to offer any sponsorship towards the financing of the club next year, please contact ahope@stokesley-alt.uk