Three St. Francis Knights Robotics teams are competing around the St. Cloud area and are off to a successful start, with four students gearing up for a national competition, school officials reported.
Now in its third year of robotics programming, St. Francis of the Lakes Catholic School has a middle school team and two elementary school teams ranging from third to eighth graders competing in VEX IQ robotics.
VEX IQ is a student-driven program designed to expose students to science, technology, engineering, math and now art fundamentals within the context of building a robot.
Both elementary teams competed in three events and brought home a Teamwork Champions award, Excellence award, Sportsmanship award and a second-place finish in Teamwork and Skill Champions.
The middle school team won awards in Create, Judges and a second-place in Teamwork and Skill Champions.
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All three teams qualified for the Minnesota State VEX IQ Championship in St. Cloud, with the middle school team finishing first place in qualifying and fifth overall. The two elementary teams finished fifth and sixth in qualifying and fourth and 10th in the finals.
Earlier in the year Camden Esser, Shawn Marcussen, Beau Thuringer and Levi Wolf from team 59365B in the elementary division, qualified for the U.S. Open Robotics Championship in Council Bluffs, Iowa, at the end of March.
