NZ world champs in robotics again

NZ world champs in robotics again

A South Auckland secondary school robotics team has won this year’s VEX Robotics World Championships in the United States, making it the fourth year running that a New Zealand team has won the title.

Overall world champions are Onehunga High School, with other groups from the Kiwibots New Zealand team winning three of the four division championships. Otumoetai College, Tauranga, are the Mathematics Division Champions; Lynfield College, West Auckland, are the Science Division Champions; and Onehunga also took the top prize as Engineering Division Champions this week.

The championship – held this year in Los Angeles – involved more than 10,000 intermediate, high school and university students, teachers and mentors from 20 countries who competed and won at regional and national contests to qualify for the world championships. The competition requires teams to build customised robots with VEX Robotics design systems and deploy strategy, tactics, software skills and team cooperation to overthrow rivals in a fast-paced game. This year’s was called Gateway.

Massey University’s Associate Professor Johan Potgieter, a mechatronics senior lecturer from the School of Engineering and Advanced Technology at Albany, was inducted into the VEX Hall of Fame as a Volunteer of the Year, as was Massey University for winning the Excellence Award in 2011.

American-based Vex Robotics was launched in New Zealand in 2008 by Massey University, which has provided training, mentoring and hosting of regional competitions.
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