Grandville Public Schools to Host Ten VEX Robotics Competitions - and the first West Michigan Regional VEX Championship

GRANDVILLE, Mich., Sept. 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Grandville Public Schools and the Grandville Academic Team Boosters continue to invest heavily in creating competitive robotics programs for K-12 students.  This year, the District has dramatically increased its commitment to hosting robotics competitions, agreeing to support ten Michigan events for VEX Robotics.  The District is also honored to host the first West Michigan Regional VEX Championship.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160923/411190
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160923/411189

VEX Robotics is the largest middle school and high school robotics program in the world.  With more than 16,000 middle school and high school teams, the program is twice the size of the next largest program (FIRST Robotics).  Grandville Public Schools has been heavily involved with VEX Robotics over the past five years, helping to start more than 100 team across nearly a dozen school districts.  This year, to support the continued growth of the program, Grandville will host four multi-week VEX Leagues, and six one-day VEX Skills Events and Tournaments.  Again this year, Grandville will run more VEX competition matches than any other school in North America.

This will be a big year in Grandville.  Grandville will host two of the largest VEX events in the region, with each bringing together more than 80 teams from all over the state to compete in the 2016-2017 VEX Challenge – StarStruck.  Full information on this year's challenge can be found at http://www.roboticseducation.org/competition-teams/vex-robotics-competition/

The West Michigan Holiday VEX Tournament will draw more than 100 teams to Grandville High School on Saturday, December 3, 2016.  This event will see alliance competition on four main fields, as well as individual robots competing on the Programming Skills and Robot Skills fields.

VEX Robotics has sanctioned the first West Michigan Regional Championship, to be held at Grandville High School on Saturday, January 21, 2017.  This inaugural event will bring together winning teams from local and regional events in West Michigan, and teams will compete for the right to advance to the State and World VEX Championships.  A regional Championship committee including representatives from Grandville, Hudsonville, Jenison, Traverse City, Belding, and Grand Rapids Christian schools is organizing this Championship event.

"The robots that students build and the competitions that they compete in are an inspiration to see," said Chris VanderSlice, Grandville Public Schools' Coordinator of Secondary Curriculum and Measurement. "The VEX Robotics Competition provides kids with an engaging hands-on learning experience that instills a passion for science and technology which encourages them to pursue STEM-related education and careers."

More information about VEX Robotics Competitions is available at RoboticsEducation.org or at RobotEvents.com. 

The Grandville High School RoboDawgs are one of the United States' largest and most accomplished high school robotics teams.  Grandville Public Schools has been a leader in educational robotics for more than 18 years.  Beginning with one high school robotics team in 1998, the district's program has now grown to include more than 80 teams based at the District's Robotics & Engineering Center.  More than 700 students, from second through twelfth grades, participate on Grandville robotics teams, designing, building, and programming robotics for competitions around the world.  Grandville has one of largest Lego League programs in the country, and it is home to twelve elementary VEX IQ teams.  These students go on to compete in the District's VEX Robotics program at the middle school level, as well as the FIRST Robotics competition and the Great American River Race at the high school level.  Team members build quadcopters and autonomous vehicles for high school competitions and university competitions across North America.  This year, the RoboDawgs' high-altitude balloon program are continuing their efforts to achieve long distance sustained high altitude balloon flight through neutral buoyancy.

For more information, contact RoboDawg Head Coaches:  Mike Evele – Email or Doug Hepfer – Email / (616)540-3239

SOURCE Grandville Academic Team Boosters