Friday, November 18, 2022 -- Wednesday afternoon, Brookwood Forest Elementary hosted the district-level VEX-IQ robotics competition. Students from all four elementary schools were in attendance, along with students from the Westminster School and a Birmingham home team. Mountain Brook Junior High students served as officials and mentors for the event.

The first section of the event was the skills competition where competitors received a score in both programming and driving. Students with the highest combined score in the two categories claimed the title of “Robot Skills Champion.”

“My goal is to create autonomous learners and problem solvers," VEX-IQ robotics sponsor and MBJH teacher, James Salvant said. "I want students to be able to take a problem, and break it down into smaller problems to solve.”

In the second part of the competition, students faced off in the teamwork section, where two robots were randomly paired. The competitors were challenged to collaborate in order to score the highest in the programming categories. Through working with others, Salvant said his hope is for students to develop skills that will help them both in and out of the classroom.

“Students must be able to not only work independently but also be able to work together to solve problems," he added.

After the competition, the top six teams entered a finals match, where from those teams, two qualified for the VEX-IQ State Robotics Competition. Congratulations to all of our MBS robotics students!