Students in Introduction to Engineering wrapped up the third grading period with a class engineering competition. In a test of teamwork, creativity and understanding of the design process, six teams were formed to take on the VEX IQ Challenge: Next Level, a game involving pushing and stacking large plastic hubs. 

Students in Introduction to Engineering wrapped up the third grading period with a class engineering competition. In a test of teamwork, creativity and understanding of the design process, six teams were formed to take on the VEX IQ Challenge: Next Level, a game involving pushing and stacking large plastic hubs. The game includes an optional climbing bar field element. The VEX IQ line of modular engineering kits allowed teams to quickly prototype, test, break and test again - an important lesson in the Introduction to Engineering curriculum. For six weeks, students worked on a variety of development tasks to create a robot suited for the challenge. Tasks ranged from creating Gantt charts to establish project deadlines, using block-based programming to create autonomous scoring routes, and printing 3D custom elements to prototype their ideas for extending mechanisms.

On Jan. 11, the teams worked in solo and pair challenges for Next Level. Independently, teams had the opportunity to score points through both driver and pre-programmed routines, taking their best score and adding it to their competition total. Afterwards, each team played three scheduled matches with another team, working together to get the highest cumulative score. This competition pushed the engineering students to think about the technical skills, and soft skills including project management and communication, that are integral to engineering.