By Victoria Stone-Meadows
The VEX robotics team from Hillcrest College in Clyde North is heading to the USA to compete against 30 other countries in an international robotics championship.
The Hillcrest VEX team will be competing to defend the title they first won at the world championship in 2015.
The team became back-to-back Australian champions after winning the Australian VEX robotics competition in Wangaratta in December 2016.
The team received an award for excellence at the completion last year and were selected to represent Australia at the VEX world Championship in Louisville, Kentucky.
The competition is the largest STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) event in the world with 500 teams from over 30 countries competing over four days.
The VEX team from Hillcrest will be competing against teams from Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the USA.
Head of science at Hillcrest Simon Taylor said the team would be taking their best ever robot to the states to beat out the fierce competition.
“To prepare for the world competition the team has worked tirelessly to develop a new robot, one that is hopefully competitive at an international standard,” he said.
“The students are looking forward to demonstrating how much they learnt from last year’s competition and their goal is to rank in the top 30 of their division.”
