Applying VEX GO

Connection to VEX GO

The Village Engineering Construction STEM Lab brings the fun of robotics competitions to the classroom, as students explore all the different components needed to make a community work with their VEX GO robot.  The tasks that the Hero Robot needs to complete to earn points in the competition directly relate to the logistics of providing communities with food, water, shelter, and power. 

In Lab 1, students build the Competition Advanced 2.0 Hero Bot and drive it using the Drive Tab in VEXcode GO to lift and transport walls and a roof from trailers and a container to the red tile, and then build a new structure. Students will need to think strategically about how to manipulate the robotic arm to lift each of the different shaped house components. Additionally, while practicing Lab 1, students are introduced to robotics competitions and begin to build skills that allow them to be good teammates to one another as facilitated through conversations and reminders from the teacher. 

In Lab 2, students will drive the Hero Bot to rotate the wind turbine into position and lower the village bridge. Students will want to think about how they can work collaboratively as a team to find the most efficient strategy to accomplish both tasks. Students should try multiple ways to accomplish both tasks to see which method is the quickest. 

In Lab 3, students will drive their Hero Bot and use the robotic arm to lift and transport a water pipe from its trailer to the Water Tower Tile, and lift the Water Tower upright. Students will need to slow down and think through the position of the water pipe on the trailer and the best way to use the robotic arm to lift and transport it to the Water Tower Tile. Students should work collaboratively to find various ways to lift the Water Tower upright, using the robot, or using the robotic arm. Students should plan together strategically to determine the most efficient order in which to complete the tasks. 

In Lab 4, students will drive their Hero Bot to pick up the crops on the Field. The crops then need to be transported to the Food Processor tile. Each crop is shaped slightly differently, and because of this, students will need to apply spatial reasoning skills in a variety of ways to use the robotic arm to lift each crop. This is also a good opportunity to introduce students to the challenge of re-designing the robotic arm to construct it to more efficiently lift the crops. Human or robot can press down the Food Processor which will produce and release the Food element. Students then need to use their Hero Robot to transport the food from the Food Processor tile to the Red Tile where the houses were constructed in Lab 1. 

In Lab 5 the class will transform into a competition arena where teams will compete to see how many tasks they can complete in the time limit. They will use what they learned in the previous Labs to develop a game strategy to try to earn a high score!