Lynfield College Robotics to the 2016 VEX Worlds Championship

Hey there, we are Lynfield College Robotics, a robotics team of high school students between Years of 9-13 from Lynfield College in Auckland, New Zealand. To keep it short and sweet, essentially every year, we compete in the VEX Robotics Competition which is the largest high school robotics competition globally, consisting of over 12,000 teams who originate from 33 different countries.

We’ve been involved with this program since it was first introduced to New Zealand in 2008 and have held the title of World Champions in the High School Division for three years following our win in Kentucky last year. We’ve also been National Champions for the past five years. Robotics isn’t a walk in the park sport and requires a lot of time, dedication, commitment and passion all round the scale from all our members for us to stay at the top. But it also requires a lot of resources to maintain world-class robotics and a lot of money to fly our team from little old New Zealand, right round the world to the United States.

This year, we hope to send 12 of our senior students to compete at the World Championships which are to be held in Louisville, America in April and we need your help and support to ensure we can send the strongest team possible to represent Kiwi youth in the STEM fields on an international scale and try defend our titles.

2015 Worlds Championship and 2016 Nationals:

Last year in April, we sent out two teams of four students each to compete in the VEX Worlds Championship in Kentucky, Louisville. After three seemingly endless and gruelling days of tough competition, our A team successfully managed to defend our World Champion title for the 3rd consecutive year!

This past February, our 3 senior teams competed in the 2016 New Zealand Nationals competition and did extremely well. Two of our teams made it to their respective Division Finals while the other won the whole Tournament, making us National Champions for the 5th Consecutive year! We also won three other major awards: Robot Skills Champions, the Think Award and also the Excellence Award - which is the highest and most prestigious award in the competition and is given to a team that shows excellence in all aspects of robotics; from the design, build and performance of our robots to our teamwork and contributions to the wider community.

Why Donate to us?

Competing at the Worlds Championship means a huge deal to us. We not only get a chance at defending our World Champion title but also represent New Zealand while doing so, in front of not only the thousands of spectators, but the whole World.

This year, we’re sending 12 students to compete at Louisville in April and the price for each student is very high, with the cost of the airfares themselves reaching to more than $3000 per student. On top of this, we have to factor in the costs of accommodation, daily meals and even the Worlds registration cost per team of $750 USD.

Although we have received some money through winning Nationals and from a few sponsors, it doesn’t even cover half of the cost of this trip. Every single dollar donated by you will go a long way to reducing the costs for the students and make this opportunity a lot more affordable and accessible for us as a collective.

Our Background:

Lynfield College Robotics started off in 2008 when VEX was first introduced in New Zealand. Initially the group consisted of just a small handful of boys and girls tinkering around with electronics in a little garage but over the years we’ve grown from strength to strength and have proven ourselves strong contenders in the world of VEX.

We now have three senior teams running full swing in the VEX Robotics Competition and over 20 Junior members who are mentored by older students to help them gain and develop fundamental skills involved with all aspects of robotics.

At Lynfield College Robotics, our core values are not necessarily to win but rather strive to be our best and commit every ounce of our passion towards that goal and most importantly have fun while doing so.

About VEX:

The VEX Robotics Competition is the largest and fastest growing middle school and high school robotics program globally with more than 12,000 teams from 33 countries. Each year, an exciting engineering challenge is presented in the form of a game. Students, with guidance from their teachers and mentors, build innovative robots and compete year-round in a variety of matches.

In addition to learning valuable engineering skills, students gain life skills such as teamwork, perseverance, communication, collaboration, project management, and critical thinking. The VEX Robotics Competition prepares students to become future innovators with 95% of participants reporting an increased interest in STEM subject areas and pursuing STEM-related careers.

The VEX Robotics Competition doesn’t only teach students Engineering and Programming. Through competitions such as the Online Challenges, students can develop significant skills such as creating websites (We placed 2nd in the World in this competition recently), designing models using CAD and also 3D Animation.

About Lynfield College:

Lynfield College is a High School in Auckland New Zealand. It is a multicultural school with over 1900 students. Lynfield College is a very successful school, with successes and strengths not only in Robotics but in all areas, including Academics, Sport, Cultural and Music.