Taiwan students claim major honors at VEX robotics championship

San Francisco, May 2 (CNA) Taiwanese students won several honors at the 2026 VEX Robotics World Championship, which concluded Thursday in St. Louis, Missouri, including the Innovate Award, Create Award and Design Award.

The global competition, held from April 21-30, has been recognized multiple times by Guinness World Records as the world's largest robotics competition.

A total of 126 Taiwanese students from 17 teams took part in the championship, including nine high school teams, five middle school teams and three elementary school teams.

V5RC, the themed game at the VEX championship, requires student teams in different divisions to design, build and program their own robots to compete in head-to-head matches.

According to the game manual, each match consists of two alliances, with two robots on each side working to outscore their opponents by placing cubes into scoring zones.

While the rules allow robots to block or interfere with opponents' movement, intentional contact that causes damage is prohibited, according to the manual.

Teams could also compete in the Robot Skills Challenge, which consists of 60-second matches. The challenge includes Driving Skills Matches, in which students control the robot, and Autonomous Coding Skills Matches, in which the robot operates independently through software programming.

In the high school division, Taiwan's Joinus team from Curious X-Lab won the Design Award in the Research Division.

The lab said in a social media post that judges were impressed by the team's engineering notebook, which clearly documented its "robot iterations and strategic development."

The team also placed seventh in the Robot Skills Challenge.

Another high school team, Unicorn Puncher from Dr. Player Robotic Lab Taichung, received the Create Award in the Spirit Division.

In the middle school division, Taiwan's Happy Hippo team from Fancy Robotics International finished as runner-up in the Math Division and also won the division's Innovate Award.

Fancy Robotics International said in a social media post that the achievement reflected not only the team's engineering ability, but also its innovation.

Among the elementary school teams, Chingshin Academy won third place in the Teamwork Challenge in the Science Division.

Debby Huang (黃虹慧), director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Denver, congratulated the participating teams and presented congratulatory messages from President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴).