Robotics Education & Competition Foundation
Inspiring students, one robot at a time.

REC Foundation STEM Educational Video Challenge

Create a video to teach a new team something about the STEM aspects of robotics engineering or construction that you have learned from experience that can help them better prepare for a competition.

 

Prizes

  • 1st: RECF STEM Educational Video Award, $750 vexrobotics.com gift certificate and automatic team qualification for the 2015 VEX Robotics World Championship if the entrant is part of a registered VRC, VEX U or VEX IQ Challenge team
  • 2nd: $500 vexrobotics.com gift certificate
  • 3rd: $250 vexrobotics.com gift certificate

Requirements

Overview

Create a video to teach a new team something about the STEM aspects of robotics engineering or construction that you have learned from experience that can help them better prepare for a competition. You should come up with your own idea, but here are some sample ideas from previous years’ Educational Videos:

  • How to calculate loads for robotics mechanisms
  • How to build a specific mechanism such as a drive train, lifting arm
  • How to best use specific robotics components in designing a robot
  • How to use programming with the hardware to accomplish something specific
Eligibility
  • This contest is open to students anywhere in the world currently registered in an education institution at any level, or to home school students younger than college/university level.
Requirements

These are the minimum requirements for this challenge. The “Evaluation” section below will provide additional guidance on how your project will be judged. Failure to fulfill any of these requirements may result in your entry being disqualified from advancing to Finalist or Winner status.

  • This challenge is about robot design, construction and programming. Your video must focus on some aspect of these processes.
  • Video up to three minutes long, submitted to YouTube, plus an additional credits section at the end, up to 15 seconds long.
  • At the end of the video, there must be a credits section up to 15 seconds long which includes the name of the entrant or entrants, the VRC or VRCC team number of the team (if any), and the name of the video, plus any other information the creators want to include (software used, recognition of sponsors, etc.)
  • Videos submitted in previous Online Challenges are not eligible for submission this year.
Judging

Judges will select ten finalists from the submitted entries, and will take community voting results into account in making their choices. The finalist submissions will then be judged by additional selected professionals whose scores will be combined with the preliminary-round judges’ scores to determine the winner of the RECF Team Educational Video Challenge.

Evaluation Criteria and Additional Information

Your video should focus on the science, construction, engineering and/or math of designing and building robots. The judges will expect each entry to cover at least one of these areas:

  • How to construct a particular kind of robotics mechanism
  • Doing the math of robotics design – gears, loads, speeds, size, weights, etc
  • How to use an engineering approach to solve a robotics problem
  • How to use a certain part or parts to build robotics mechanisms
  • How to measure robotics actions
  • Using programming and hardware together to accomplish something with a robot
  • Other STEM aspect of robot design and construction – as long as it is about designing and building robots, it is appropriate
The judges will evaluate each entry on:
  • The entry provides real solutions to the STEM issues facing competition teams
  • The video effectively states its goals and achieves them
  • The video is easily understood, clearly presented, creative and is enjoyable to watch
  • Video is of high production quality, with good video, editing and sound

Deadline Information

Current time:
Mon, Oct 7, 2024 5:54 PM CDT

Opens:

Tue, Sep 16, 2014 5:00 PM CDT

Closes:

Tue, Jan 13, 2015 4:00 PM CST

Voting Ends:

Sun, Feb 15, 2015 4:00 PM CST