VIQRC Session 7
Before You Begin This Session
Congratulations! You got your team through their first VIQRC event! The goal of this session is to celebrate that accomplishment, and guide your team to reflect on their experience to get ready for their next event. No matter what the outcome on the leaderboard was, competing in and of itself is a success. This session is your opportunity, as coach, to make sure that students recognize their successes, and see any perceived failures as opportunities to learn.
In this session, students will complete a choice board activity (individually or in small groups) to share their reflections and thoughts from the competition. Then, you will bring the whole team together to share what they created, and talk about how they want to apply their learning from the competition moving forward. This was just their first competition - how can they build on that experience to make the next competition go even better? You may want to:
- Have the date of the next competition and details about the event ready to share.
- Post students' choice board creations on a bulletin board or in your school to share students' learning with others.
- Guide students to choose which session of this unit they want to to return to next to improve their strategy or robot moving forward.
Encourage your team to celebrate their learning! Regardless of how their matches played out, or if they won awards or not, your team learned valuable lessons from their competition experience. Help students to think more broadly about what success means, and keep the reflection discussion positive.
Congratulations! You competed in your first VIQRC event! You learned so many things from your competition day experience. In this session, you will celebrate your successes and reflect on your competition experience with your team.
You will first complete a reflection activity about what went well, and what you learned from other teams. Then you will come together to figure out how your team can apply your learning moving forward this season.
Before you begin, make sure you have your engineering notebook ready to document your plans.
Watch the video below to get started.
Activity: Choice Board Reflection
Now that you've been to your first VIQRC event it's time to reflect on your team's successes and what you learned from others throughout the competition. You will choose one of the activities in the choice board below. Once everyone has completed the activity, you will share what you create with your team. 
Choice Board
Interview Pretend you're a reporter! Record yourself asking one or two teammates about the competition. What part of the day went really well? What’s something interesting your teammate noticed another team doing? | Make a Poster Design a colorful poster to show off your team’s best moments. Include pictures or drawings and explain one cool thing your team learned from another group. | Storyboard Draw a comic-style storyboard with 3–5 scenes that tell a story about your competition day. Show what you saw another team do and how that helped your own team. |
Journal Entry Write a journal entry like you’re telling a friend about the competition day. What were highlights for your team? What is something another team did that gave you an idea? | Slideshow Make a slideshow with photos from the event. Add short captions that explain what went well for your team and what you learned by watching other teams compete. | Newspaper Article Write a front-page news story about your team’s success. Use exciting headlines and describe what made your day great — and what you learned from watching other teams. |
Now that you've been to your first VIQRC event it's time to reflect on your team's successes and what you learned from others throughout the competition. You will choose one of the activities in the choice board below. Once everyone has completed the activity, you will share what you create with your team.
Choice Board
Interview Pretend you're a reporter! Record yourself asking one or two teammates about the competition. What part of the day went really well? What’s something interesting your teammate noticed another team doing? | Make a Poster Design a colorful poster to show off your team’s best moments. Include pictures or drawings and explain one cool thing your team learned from another group. | Storyboard Draw a comic-style storyboard with 3–5 scenes that tell a story about your competition day. Show what you saw another team do and how that helped your own team. |
Journal Entry Write a journal entry like you’re telling a friend about the competition day. What were highlights for your team? What is something another team did that gave you an idea? | Slideshow Make a slideshow with photos from the event. Add short captions that explain what went well for your team and what you learned by watching other teams compete. | Newspaper Article Write a front-page news story about your team’s success. Use exciting headlines and describe what made your day great — and what you learned from watching other teams. |
The goal of this activity is to give students a creative way to reflect on their competition day experience. Everyone is answering the same questions, but doing it in a way that works best for them. You can have students complete the activity individually, with their drive team partner, or in a small group.
As students are working, ask the following questions to help them reflect and communicate their ideas.
- To think about what went well, ask:
- What was your favorite part of the event?
- What was a pleasant surprise?
- What positive experiences or interactions did you have throughout the day?
- To think about what was learned from another team, ask:
- What is something you learned from your alliance partners?
- What did you learn from watching other teams compete?
- What is something you learned about robot design from seeing other robots?
Give students time to complete their reflection in a meaningful way. Don't let students rush through this activity - encourage them to take the time to think more deeply about the day as a whole, and help them to celebrate all of the ways in which their team found success!
Wrap-Up
Now that you have completed your choice board activity, it is time to come together to reflect as a team. Share what you made in the choice board activity. Once everyone has shared their creations, have a whole team discussion about what you would like to do before your next competition.
How can you take what you learned and apply it moving forward?
As a team, discuss these questions:
- What is one strategy idea you want to try to apply? What would you need to do to accomplish that?
- What is one robot design idea you were inspired by? How could you bring that idea to life?
Make sure to record your ideas in your engineering notebook, so you have documentation of what you want to try to do next.
You can return to sessions 4 or 5 to help you iterate on your strategy or robot design as you try to implement your ideas for improvements. After your next competition, return to this session to help you reflect and prepare once again.
Good luck and have fun this season!
Now that you have completed your choice board activity, it is time to come together to reflect as a team. Share what you made in the choice board activity. Once everyone has shared their creations, have a whole team discussion about what you would like to do before your next competition.
How can you take what you learned and apply it moving forward?
As a team, discuss these questions:
- What is one strategy idea you want to try to apply? What would you need to do to accomplish that?
- What is one robot design idea you were inspired by? How could you bring that idea to life?
Make sure to record your ideas in your engineering notebook, so you have documentation of what you want to try to do next.
You can return to sessions 4 or 5 to help you iterate on your strategy or robot design as you try to implement your ideas for improvements. After your next competition, return to this session to help you reflect and prepare once again.
Good luck and have fun this season!
Help students to use the resources in this unit to help them as they continue with their season. You can return to any of the previous sessions or activities to guide the team through further iterations and improvements.
These resources can help you and your team get ready for the next competition:
- The IQ Section of the VEX Library contains articles and information about the mechanical and coding aspects of the VEX IQ system.
- The VIQRC Section of the REC Library has articles about everything related to VIQRC competitions.
- notebooking.vex.com has resources to support students' engineering notebook practices.
Looking to do more at competition? Try incorporating Robot Skills or Online Challenges.
- Learn about Driving and Autonomous Coding Skills in the Robot Skills Challenge section of the VIQRC Mix & Match game manual.
- Use the VEXcode API Reference to learn about all of the commands in the VEXcode IQ Toolbox.
- Learn about RECF Online Challenges for this year in this article.
If you have reached the end of your season, and are looking for ways to capitalize on students' excitement around robotics and STEM learning, these resources can help you explore further:
- teachiq.vex.com can help you build your coaching and teaching skills with IQ, and show how you can incorporate VEX IQ STEM Labs and Activities with your team.
- VEXcode VR resources can support students who want to level up their coding skills.
Most importantly, have fun with your team and enjoy being a part of their STEM learning journey!
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