Before the Christmas break, our STEM Engagement Officer, Seanie Morris, visited schools in the county to check progress and offer help on their VEX IQ Robotics building and coding activities. In all, there are 17 primary schools and 10 secondary schools (for the Junior Cycle) from across Laois that are involved, and this number is only going to rise!
In Laois, our Junior Cycle Secondary Schools VEX IQ Competition is on January 22nd, while the Primary Schools VEX IQ Competition is on February 5th. School teams get to build their robots in advance over many weeks, and then play the competition game Rapid Relay and code their robots to achieve points during these competition dates. 3 winning teams on the days will progress to MTU in Cork for the National Finals in late February.
Coding and Computer Programming are cited as the skills of the 21st century. Coding is everywhere, from engineering to gaming, medical to education, and the current and future jobs market relies on a growing pool of computer programming and software talent. By rolling out the VEX IQ (and VEX V5) Robotics programmes, children learn the benefits of building and engineering a robot, make better their teamwork collaboration, and coding skills to get everything working together. It is hoped that as these children grow and learn that they will take on subject in the sciences, engineering, computers and allied subjects and lean towards similar career paths.
The STEM Engagement Project is under the Midlands Regional Enterprise Development Plan, is a collaboration between Laois County Council and Midlands Ireland and funded by the European Union Just Transition Fund.
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