Congratulations to team “KOALA-T”, “Neptunes Angels” and “Anonymous” from Braidhurst High School for winning the regional championships and the Judges Award in the VEX Turning point Challenge. This year’s competition was held at New College Lanarkshire (Motherwell Campus). Teams from other North Lanarkshire Schools competed against each other for an “alliance place” in the UK regional finals in Tedford. The Vex Robotics Challenge is the World’s Largest and Fastest-Growing Robotics Competition for High Schools, Colleges and Universities. More than 10,000 teams from 32 countries playing in over 750 tournaments compete to become the best globally.

Many teams have already qualified for the UK finals, which take place at the Telford International conference centre. The town of Telford is just a few miles from Ironbridge Gorge, an UNESCO World Heritage Site and the birth place of the Industrial revolution. At the competition Some familiar names, such as Team Control Freaks from the John Warner School in Hertfordshire, will be strong favourites, while there are five teams alone from London’s Henrietta Barnett School in the VEX IQ UK Final. Soon five members from Braidhurst High STEM Club will join others in the UK finals. Members of the club are now refining their skills in programming before they go to the National competition.

 In the VEX Competitions, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, teams of students are tasked with designing and building a robot to play against other teams from around the world in a game-based engineering challenge. Classroom STEM concepts are put to the test on the playing field as students learn lifelong skills in teamwork, leadership, communications, and more. Tournaments are held year-round at the regional, and at national levels; local champions go on to compete against the best in the world at VEX Worlds each April.

The club has been very well supported by North Lanarkshire and includes pupils ranging from S1 to S4. Currently the Braidhurst High School STEM club has 21 members including three S5 female student, STEM ambassadors who have taken on the commitment to support the younger less experienced members. They are true role models and are equipping the developing young minds to meet the Autonomous revolution that all countries are facing.