The VEX Robotics Competition, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation, is the largest and fastest growing middle school and high school robotics program globally with more than 20,000 teams from 50 countries playing in over 1,700 competitions worldwide. Each year, an exciting engineering challenge is presented in the form of a game. Students, with guidance from their teachers and mentors, build innovative robots and compete year-round. 

For the 2024 season, 820 high school teams (out of 6,383 high school teams globally) from all 50 states and 60 different countries advanced to the 2024 VEX Robotics World Championship. 

Six Lexington-based teams advanced to the World Championship

Lexington-based team VOID (4024V) showcased remarkable skill and finished as Division Finalists at the World Championship.

Throughout the process, they learned invaluable lessons not only in traditional STEM-related areas of engineering, physics, and computer science but also on how to work together effectively as a team. They analyzed lessons learned from reviewing videos of games played at regional competitions and continuously made enhancements to improve the robot, sometimes by dismantling it altogether and starting from scratch. All of this required persistence, dedication, and passion for excellence throughout the year.

The exceptional level of communication throughout the process fostered intellectual stimulation, resulting in an enhanced level of flow for the team members.

The team members had a chance to gain a global perspective given the scale of the competition.

Despite the fact that the VEX program is built around competition and teams compete against each other, the most amazing thing that the team members learned from the experience is the community supporting each other and sharing best practices along the way. In an era where everyone tries to step onto each other to advance, it’s an invaluable life lesson. In other words, it was a healthy competition where teams encouraged each other.

The team VOID members are:

  • Kaden Shin, driver; 10th grader at LHS
  • Aaron Yu, builder, 10th grader at LHS
  • Abinav Kumar, coder, 9th grader at Andover High School

The team members have been working together since 2022 and have been competing at regional competitions, and this is the second year they have advanced to the World Championship. They spent countless hours at late nights and weekends to prepare for the competition. The team custom-built their VEX V5 robot many times over and over again, with trial and error, to perfect their robot since May 2023 and competed in the World Championship with their final version.

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