Free Range Robotics

Free Range Robotics is a home school club based in Albany and we compete in VEX Robotics competitions - including monthly scrimmages, as well as national and international championships.

The VEX Robotics Competition is the largest and fastest growing middle and high school robotics program globally with more than 16,000 teams from over 33 countries playing in hundreds of tournaments worldwide. https://www.vexrobotics.com/

The VEX Robotics Design System offers students an exciting platform for learning about areas rich with career opportunities spanning Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

On the 25th February 2018 Free Range Robotics entered 3 robots to compete in the New Zealand National Championships. This competition was played out over 2 days with 168 qualification matches being played before moving onto the final knockout stage of the competition. Free Range Robotics Team Douglas not only placed first in the qualifying stages of the competition they went onto the the final stages and along with their alliance partners were crowned tournament champions.

Team Douglas was also the recipient of the coveted overall Excellence Award.

This is the highest award presented in the VEX Robotics Competition. The recipient of this award is a team that exemplifies overall excellence in creating a high quality VEX robotics program. This team excels in many areas and is a shining example of dedication, devotion, hard work and teamwork. As a strong contender in numerous award categories, this team deserves to be recognized for building a quality robot and a “team” committed to quality in everything that they do. Using this wide range of criteria, the Excellence Award will be presented to the team who excels in all areas of the VEX Robotics Competition.

As national champions Team Douglas qualified to compete in the World Championships which are held in Kentucky, USA starting 25th April 2018.

The budget to send the students and supervising adults to the World Championships is over $20,000

We have already secured $10,000 funding from the Royal Society, and we are having discussions with other charitable organisations and commercial companies about further funding.

Every penny helps, and your donation will help us send Free Range Robotics to Kentucky to compete alongside the world's best teams for the title of World Champions.

So what will we use your donation for?

Cover the student's travel and accommodation costs.

Help subsidise the cost of 2 supervising adults to travel with the team. There are actually 4 adults going with the group, two of which have agreed to self-fund.

Any remaining funds will go towards ancillary costs such as food, van hire, and possibly the purchase of any additional/replacement equipment that is required to spruce up Douglas and give him the best chance of success in the competition.

Any remaining funds after the trip will be added to the club's fund to help purchase new equipment required for next season.

Thank you for your support, it is very much appreciated.

Phil Davidson

Chairman and Coach of Free Range Robotics