Our grade 8/9 Robotics Options students at the SW campus have just kicked off the Obstacle Course unit. To start, each group built the Clawbot using provided instructions, helping them get familiar with the parts and assembly process in our new VEX V5 kits. Once assembled, students tested their creations by timing themselves as they drove through the course.

Now the real challenge begins: each team will develop strategies and modify their robot to improve speed and performance.

The course includes speed bumps made from 1″ x 4″ boards, a tricky hairpin turn, a stretch of “gravel” made from loose small parts, and a tilt table that must be climbed and carefully balanced. There’s even a possible shortcut—an “exploit”—a 6 inch wide hole in a wall that only a narrow enough robot can fit through.

Students are documenting their progress in Engineering Journals, where they record not only what they did, but also the reasoning behind their choices, challenges they encountered, and how they solved them.

Through this project, students are gaining hands-on experience with the V5 platform, building and assembly, and developing their operating skills. Once these skills are solid, we’ll move on to our next unit: automation, where students will learn to code their robots using VEXcode.

We’ll finish the term with this year’s exciting challenge, “Push Back,” where teams will compete for the highest score!

This post was enhanced using ChatGPT with the prompt “Edit this for flow and grammar.”