A robotics team made up of six 1st year ESO students from the La Valira de la Seu d’Urgell Institute, called ‘Ducks’, plans to travel to the US to participate in the final of the largest competition in the world in this field: the ‘ VEX World Robotics Competition’.
For this reason, with the support of the AFA and the educational center staff, they have promoted a crowdfunding campaign on the Verkami platform that aims to cover some of the travel expenses.
They have calculated that they need about 25,000 euros. They also hope to have sponsorship from companies and help from individuals. All of this comes after having won the state championship, where they participated for the first time in three different categories.
The world final will take place at the ‘Key Hutchinson Convention Center’ in Dallas (Texas) between April 25 and May 3. About 10,000 spectators attend the championship and about 800 teams from fifty countries around the world participate.
The competition is based on the STEAM (Science, Technology, Arts and Mathematics) learning methodology, with teams that conceptualize, design and build a robot based on different game challenges, which represent an engineering and programming challenge.
The ‘Ducks’ team from La Valira is made up of Roc Cazorla, Lohan Gomiz, Arlett Maneff, Laia Marcè, Mariona Vázquez and Arnau Vadell. He started working between October and November last year.
The last member is one of its programmers and assures that this knowledge of robotics helps him apply it in other subjects at the institute. For her part, Vázquez, who is one of the drivers of the device, says she is very happy to be able to go compete in the United States.
Angélica Medina, their coach, highlights the surprise it has been for all of them to win the state championship and explains that it was the first time she was a coach. The members of the team are students who have been doing robotics for a long time.
For her part, the pedagogical coordinator of the La Valira Institute, Sandra Moragues, explained that, despite being the first course in which they have introduced competitive robotics at the center, technology is very present in their educational project. In this sense, she believes that it provides students with tools to develop in their daily lives and see that it has a use that goes beyond video games and social networks.
