Sophie Anderson and Ezra Anderson from the Bot Masters and Lucas Bianco and Dylan Taylor from Team Pinyachta wait for the start of their first Teamwork Match at the Southern New England VEX IQ Robotics Championship on March 12. Both teams secured a spot at the World Championship in May. (Photo Courtesy Medway Public Schools) 
Lucas Bianco from Team Pinyachta demonstrates his coding skills during the Autonomous Skills event at the Southern New England VEX IQ Robotics Championship. (Photo courtesy Medway Public Schools)
MEDWAY — Superintendent Armand Pires, Principal Amanda Luizzi, and team advisor Mary Ann Tourkantonis are pleased to announce that Medway Middle School students from three different teams competed at the Southern New England Championship in Holliston earlier this month.
Held on Saturday, March 12, the students collaborated with teams from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The event, which was hosted by Hopkinton Middle School, engaged elementary and middle school students in the VEX IQ Challenge Rise Above, presented by the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation.
Tying for sixth place, Team Pinyachta and The Bot Masters qualified for the chance to showcase their skills at the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas in May, the culminating event of the season that draws the best teams from across the country in an effort to be crowned World Champions.
Medway Middle School’s VEX IQ Challenge teams are comprised of Sophie Anderson and Ezra Anderson (The Bot Masters), Lucas Bianco, Owen Broude, Jack Connolly, and Dylan Taylor (Team Pinyachta), and Cami Flynn and Kavya Viswanathan (Team Phoenix).
In the VEX IQ Challenge, Medway Middle School students, with guidance from their advisor, Mary Ann Tourkantonis, meet after school to build a robot using simple, snap-together VEX IQ parts to solve an engineering challenge that is presented each year in the form of a game. Then, teams take their fully constructed and programmed robots to qualifying competitive events where they work together to score points in teamwork matches and show off their skills individually in driver-controlled and programming Robot Skills Challenges.
In addition to building robots, the STEM Research Project component of the VEX IQ Challenge encourages students to actively explore an engineering challenge of their choice and share their research findings with event judges and their community.
“The VEX IQ Challenge fosters student development of teamwork, collaboration, critical thinking, project management and communication skills required to prepare them to become the next generation of innovators and problem solvers,” Tourkantonis said. “We congratulate all of the individual members, and look forward to cheering on those who have advanced to participate in the World Championship in Dallas in May.”
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