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

REC Foundation STEM Educational Video

In order to help a new team better design and build their robot, create a video to teach them something about STEM concepts applied to robotics. Focus on the science, construction, engineering, and/or math of designing and building robots. You should come up with your own idea, but here are some sample ideas from previous years’ STEM Educational Videos:

  • How to calculate loads for robotics mechanisms.
  • How to build a specific mechanism such as a drive train or lifting arm.
  • How to best use specific robotics components in designing a robot.
  • How to use programming with the hardware to accomplish a specific task.
  • How to use CAD software to design and test your robot before it is built.

 

Grade Level Requirements
Elementary School Middle School High School College / University No Grade Level Restrictions
Program Requirements
VEX V5 Robotics Competition VEX U Robotics Competition

Prizes

  • 1st: REC Foundation STEM Educational Video Award, $750 VEXrobotics.com gift certificate and automatic team qualification for this season's VEX Robotics World Championship if the entrant is part of a registered VRC or VEX U team
  • 2nd: $500 VEXrobotics.com gift certificate
  • 3rd: $250 VEXrobotics.com gift certificate

Eligibility

  • Entrant grade range: Middle school, high school, university.
  • VEX competition team requirement: Does not have to be a team entry.
  • Videos submitted in previous Online Challenges are not eligible for submission this year.
  • Only one entry per challenge is permitted by the same person (if an individual entry) or team (if a group/team entry). Each team in a multi-team school or club program may submit an entry. For example, teams 123A and 123B could each submit a video, but team 123A could not submit two videos.

Requirements

These are the minimum requirements for this challenge. The “Judging Information" 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. If you do not know how to post a video to YouTube, please read this instruction page.

  • Create and post to YouTube a video focusing on teaching a new team some aspect of the science, construction, engineering, and/or math of designing and building robots, up to three minutes long.
  • At the end of the video, there must be a credits section which includes the name of the entrant or entrants, the team number, and the name of the video, plus any other information the creators want to include (software used, recognition of sponsors, etc.). The credits should be no longer than 15 seconds (Total allowed video length is 3 minutes 15 seconds with credits included). 
  • Post the YouTube video link directly to this online challenge site during the submission process.
  • Please note: you must use music in the public domain, or YouTube may delete your video.
  • Videos submitted in previous Online Challenges are not eligible for submission this year.
  • Note: This challenge is about the best practices for designing and building robots, focusing on the robot. Documenting a process, such as the Engineering Notebook, is NOT part of the scope of this year's challenge.

Judging Information

Judges will select at least 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 REC Foundation STEM 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 specific robotics problem (with robot parts, not documentation alone).
  • 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 (all music must be in the public domain).

Deadline Information

Current time:
Tue, Feb 18, 2025 11:03 PM CST

Opens:

Wed, Sep 7, 2016 12:00 AM CDT

Closes:

Wed, Jan 11, 2017 11:00 PM CST

Voting Ends:

Fri, Jan 27, 2017 2:00 PM CST