Student Competitions

Wonder Workshop Launches Latest Robotics Competition

• By Joshua Bolkan
• 09/14/17

Wonder Workshop, provider of classroom robots Dash and Dot, has launched the 2017-2018 Wonder League Robotics Competition.

With competitors from 49 states and 32 countries already pre-registered, this year's competition will comprise three rounds of missions featuring the robots and one invitational round. Each mission will itself contain three story-based challenges designed to create "a scaffolded, team-based experience," according to a news release.

The first mission will be released September 18, with additional missions, progressing in difficulty, rolling out until the first three rounds end February 16. The top 1,000 teams completing those rounds by the February deadline will then be invited to the final round, taking place March 5-April 27. From those teams, the top five teams in two categories — Students aged 6-8 years and students aged 9-12 years — will receive Dash robots, competitions shirts and certificates and the top team from each category will win a $5,000 STEM grant.

"Our students are already looking forward to the kick-off of this year's competition. It provides students the opportunity to translate computer science lessons into the physical world through robotics," said Cynthia Cooksey, librarian at Perez Elementary and coach of last year's finalist team, the Programming Princesses, in a prepared statement. "Students learn critical skills, like teamwork and persistence, as they develop the computer science skills needed to be competitive in tomorrow's workforce."

For more information, or to register a team, visit education.makewonder.com.