Join hundreds of schools in the UK taking their STEM learning to the next level
Get involved in the world's largest robotics competition and bring your students' STEM skills to life!
What is the VEX Robotics Competition?
VEX Robotics Competitions bring STEM skills to life by tasking teams of students with designing, building and coding a robot to play against other teams in a game-based engineering challenge.
95% of participants report an increased interest in STEM subjects and related careers
More than just a STEM Competition
Not only does competitive robotics help students to understand STEM concepts in an applied way, but also helps to nurture crucial soft skills such as communication, presentation, collaboration and time-management. The ability to demonstrate these skills helps students in their academic pursuits, UCAS applications, job interviews and in everyday life.
“They need to be able to work together to negotiate difficult situations, to be able to compromise and to be able to shift roles within the team in order to get the best out of the whole unit. They typically have to adapt to the strengths of the rest of the team.” - Andrew Duffey, Teacher from North London Collegiate School (NLCS)
Designing, Building, and Coding
As well as the building and designing of the robot to meet the challenges of the season’s game, the competition includes both fully autonomous and driver-controlled matches.
This allows participants to showcase their engineering and programming skills, and allows team members to specialise and hone their interests, as well as giving students a chance to try new aspects of engineering.
Another key aspect of the competition is the Engineering Notebook, which is presented to a panel of judges. The Engineering Notebook is just as important as the robot itself, allowing judges to look 'under the hood' of the robot, and delve-in to learn more about the team, the robot and their design processes.
About the Programmes
VEX V5 Robotics Competition
-
Using a VEX V5 robotics kit, teams analyse the season's game and design a robot to meet its challenges.
The top 64 teams from around the UK will qualify for the VEX UK National Competition. Over 2 days, they will compete in 2 vs. 2 matches and solo Skills Matches to see who will be crowned UK National Champions.
The 24/25 season game for the VEX V5 Robotics Competition is called High Stakes. You can learn more about this seasons game here.
-
The VEX V5 Robotics Competition is open to students aged up to 18.
There are two age categories:
Middle School — for secondary school students up to 15.
High School — for secondary and sixth form students up to 18.
There is no minimum age limit for V5.
-
The VEX V5 Kit is a robotics system designed for education, competition, and hands-on STEM learning. It includes a variety of metal structural components (aluminium and steel), an array of sensors and motors, and a VEX V5 Brain.
The control system in a V5 kit is a VEX V5 Brain, which features a touchscreen, 21 smart ports for motors and sensors, and supports block and text based coding languages; C++ and Python.
VEX IQ Robotics Competition
-
Using a VEX IQ Competition Kit, teams analyse the season’s game and design a robot to meet its challenges.
Alliances of 2 teams will work together to maximise their scores in the VIQRC game — Rapid Relay.
The 24/25 season game for the VEX IQ Robotics Competition is called Rapid Relay. You can learn more about this season’s game here.
-
The VEX IQ Robotics Competition is open to students aged up to 15.
There are two age categories:
Elementary - for primary school ages.
Middle School - for secondary school students up to 15.
There is no minimum age for IQ.
-
The VEX IQ Kit is a robotics system designed for education, competition, and hands-on STEM learning. It includes a variety of plastic snap-together pieces, an array of sensors and motors, and a VEX IQ Brain.
The control system in a IQ kit is a VEX IQ Brain, which features a screen, 12 smart ports for motors and sensors, and supports block coding and Python.
“We’re a first year team, we came into this with no experience, so making it to Nationals is pretty big for us. We've come so far, we started with the Hero-bot, and we've worked on it for hours. Hopefully we've created a sustainable robotics programme for our school.” - St Chris Snowflakes - V5RC Team
“It's an absolutely amazing experience. To see the exposure of where they worked in isolation to see that same program across lots of different schools - whether it's a grammar school or a local comprehensive. It's helping to grow our footprint, we're seeing more schools getting in touch and say, how can we take part in this amazing thing called VEX.” - Dave Cross, Teacher from North Liverpool Academy
“Since forming a team last year, the VEX V5 competition has provided life-changing and hugely memorable experiences for the students involved, through working together to develop strategies, design solutions and overcome obstacles (including raising funds).
In my opinion, there is nothing to match these events in terms of a competition open to anyone who is willing to commit the time, effort and positivity to succeed, regardless of knowledge, skills, personality or anything else that might be considered barriers in other fields.” - Simon Earnshaw, Teacher from Framwellgate School
"It's been 5 years since I've personally been involved in the VEX Robotics Competition, but competing at the VEX UK Nationals has always an incredible experience. My kids, as a rookie independent team, poured countless hours into designing, refining, and perfecting their robot, and even more hours into their Engineering Notebook in order to set a standard and benchmark for themselves for the future.
To have their effort recognised on a national stage was an unforgettable achievement. VEX Robotics is more than just competition – it’s about problem-solving, resilience, and pushing the boundaries of what young minds can achieve." – Mr Sadler (Teacher and Team Mentor)
If you are interested in learning more about the VEX Robotics Competition programmes or would like to discuss the best ways to implement it into your school or college, fill in our interest form using the button below.
More Info & FAQ’s
-
The season runs each May to the following March, and teams can attend as many events as they wish during that season.
Teams currently taking part will typically meet weekly (or fortnightly early in the season) after school or during lunchtimes, this frequency can increase closer to events.
The programme is designed to be student-led, so work can take place away from school by students.
A typical team will spend a minimum of around 6 sessions prior to an event working and developing their robot, but the team may spend as much additional time as they wish in preparation for an event.
-
Tournaments are held year-round at local, regional, and national levels (around 40 in the UK alone) that culminate at the VEX Robotics World Championship in the US each May.
Each team set their own benchmarks; whether that‘s to excel at regional events, to complete a certain number of the challenges, or to qualify for UK Nationals and compete against the best in the UK.
The competition is open to all, globally, including school teams, clubs, and independent teams.
-
There is an annual registration fee of £125+VAT for the season, which allows teams to attend as many qualification events as they wish, both locally and across the country.
Teams also require a VEX IQ or VEX V5 competition kit to build their robot with - this is available from VEX Robotics and can be used year-on-year, so not an annual fee.
Grants are available throughout the season from various organisations (including neon).