The Miami-Dade County Public Schools VEX Robotics Virtual Programming Competition on Sept. 25th drew students from 36 elementary, middle and high schools.
The middle school kids teamed up to write 200 lines of code to direct the movements of a robot, said teacher Jessica Hernandez of the Miami Lakes K-8 Center.
Hernandez is the school’s robotics and computer science instructor. Students Daniel Lopez, Grade 6, shown above, and Aidan Schwinghammer, Grade 8, to the right of teacher Jessica Hernandez, teamed up from their respective homes to design the code in 45 minutes. The boys worked via Zoom.
They had to follow lots of rules and were limited to the number of code blocks they could use, the teacher said.
MLK-8 took 3rd place; students from Palm Springs Middle School finished second and Young Women’s Preparatory Academy won first, Hernandez said.
“Miami Lakes K-8 is very proud of Aidan and Danny,” Hernandez said. “It was amazing that they had never worked together before but came together to win.”
Photo by Jessica Hernandez.