The 2025 VEX Robotics World Championship wrapped up in Dallas, Texas, May 14. The video story here is from last year's VEX Robotics Educator Conference, which takes places at the start of the championship.

At last year's VEX Robotics World Championship, PBS NewsHour Classroom had the opportunity to speak with several educators about how robotics education helps students develop problem-solving skills through communication and collaboration.

"What they are experiencing as part of a VEX Robotics team is really what we're trying to get them to realize what the workforce is like," says Louie Lopez, the director of the Department of Defense STEM. "You're going to have to collaborate with other team members. You're going to have to collaborate with folks from other countries in your science and engineering worlds."

Dana Townson, a STEM educator from Bradenton, Florida, provided a teacher's perspective on the benefits of allowing students to experiment with robotics and STEM at a young age.

"When you actually watch a video of a world's competition, it is extremely intimidating because I think to myself, 'there's no way those children built that'," says Townson. "But now I'm in my fifth or sixth year of doing this, and I have students building very complicated, intricate, multi-level systems. I think that when we put limits on children, then they're going to put limits on themselves."

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Watch Student Voice: How learning robotics opens the door for invention education to learn more about what it's like to be part of a robotics team.
• Want to learn more about teaching robotics? Watch this Educator Voice video with Jason McKenna, long-time former teacher and robotics extraordinaire.
• Complete this fun Daily News Lesson with your students: Building a robot: The dedication and drive of one world championship robotics team.
• Watch Educator Voice: Creating lifelong learners through robotics and equity to hear another educator's perspective on STEM education.
• Hear from a robotics team from Ghana that made it to VEX World's last year by watching Educator Voice: Youth robotics team from Ghana on what it took to get to world championship.

Sign up here for PBS News Hour Classroom's Invention Educator Network where teachers from various subjects and grade levels come together to discuss all things invention & innovation. Check out our Invention Education collection, including lessons on robotics.

This post was produced by Vic Pasquantonio and Gianfranco Beran.

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