Doswell, Va. (Feb. 25, 2019) – NOVA SySTEMic, Northern Virginia Community College’s STEM Outreach Program, will host 140 robotics teams from across the Commonwealth as they compete in the VEX Robotics Virginia State Championship, called States19. The event will take place on Friday, March 1, from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Saturday, March 2 from 8 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. at Meadow Event Park at 13191 Dawn Boulevard, Doswell, VA 23047. The competition is open and free to the public.

VEX competitions bring STEM skills to life by tasking teams of students to build and design a robot to play against other teams in a game-based engineering challenge. Classroom STEM concepts are put to the test as students learn valuable skills in teamwork, leadership and communication. Tournaments are at the regional, state and national levels and culminate at the VEX Robotics World Championship, held every year in April.

States19 is a two-day tournament comprised of students playing the plastic platform VEX IQ Challenge game, Next Level, for elementary and middle school students – and the more advanced metal platform VEX Robotics Competition game, Turning Point, for middle and high school students. States19 is known for its energy and intensity as students hone their collaboration abilities and technical skills in competition. Students participating in States19 will compete for top honors to earn one of 27 qualifying spots for the VEX Robotics World Championship in Louisville, Ky.

Organized and run by NOVA SySTEMic, States19 is supported by Micron, the Northrup Grumman Foundation, and the Robotics Education and Competition (REC) Foundation. Representatives from these organizations will speak at the competition, as well as NOVA President Scott Ralls and NOVA Information and Engineering Technologies (IET) Provost Chad Knights.

It takes more than 100 volunteers as referees, judges and general volunteers to make the event a success. Every year student and adult volunteers are recruited for the State Championship from institutions and companies around the region to support these students' achievements.

NOVA SySTEMic is a leader in the nation in supporting VEX in the school divisions they serve and has a proven track record of putting on high-quality events that engage students in exciting, hands-on robotics engineering competitions. In addition, NOVA SySTEMic provides trailer and equipment rentals for robotics, free training for mentors and volunteers and event partner training.

NOVA has cutting-edge degree programs that the hands-on experience of robotics leads into, particularly in Emerging Technologies. Students who participate in robotics are well positioned to pursue degrees in Engineering Technology (utilizing a state-of-the-art Fab Lab on the Manassas Campus), Data Center Operations and Cloud Computing.

Story Source: Bryce Lenon, NOVA SySTEMic PR & Marketing Coordinator | 703.530.8297 | blenon@nvcc.edu

For additional event details visit https://www.nvcc.edu/systemic/competitions.html

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