Three elementary school robotics teams captured awards Tuesday afternoon at the 2018 Vex IQ World Championship in Louisville, Kentucky.
The teams that won judged awards were the Autibots of Oak Grove Lower Elementary School with the Judges Award in the Viking Division, the AquaBots of Oak Grove Lower Elementary School with the STEM Award in the Viking Division and the Beverly Hills Bots of Petal with the Amaze Award in the Cassini Division.
Members of the AquaBots team are Madelyn Courtney, Mica Shemper and Elliot Walsh, while the AutiBots are composed of Trey Marshall, Naaman Parish, Jason Sartin and Wyatt Walsh. Other team members were not available before press time.
Two teams finished in the top 10 percent of the Elementary Skills competition: the TwinBots (Jacob and Katie Roark) from Oak Grove Upper Elementary School were 15th out of 400 and Beverly Hills Bots 22nd out of 400. This is the first year for Petal to compete in robotics.
The local teams faced competition from 400 elementary school teams representing 46 countries. Teams were divided into four divisions: Cassini, Chandra, Hubble and Viking.
Three Pine Belt teams – Twinbots, BroBots (James and Jacob Riles) and AutiBots each made it to their division finals.
Oak Grove Lower Elementary School held a send-off parade for the robotics students last Friday while they were wearing their STEM Research Outfits and being led by drummers from Oak Grove High School. The hallways were lined with students and teachers cheering the teams on as they began their trip to the World Championship. Oak Grove Lower Elementary School had 18 students that traveled to the World Championship, the largest contingent of any school.
