Nanjing International School hosted its first ACAMIS VEX V5 Robotics Scrimmage. With custom-built and programmed robots for the 2024-25 “VEX High Stakes” season, 140 students and coaches from schools across China descended upon NIS ready to do battle. Over the day, 26 separate teams fought their way through the qualifying matches, narrowing the field down to 8 alliance teams for the finals.

“With autonomous and driver-controlled phases, students worked constantly to refine their code and repair their robots after each round of competition,” said Mr. Ken Brady, NIS Design Teacher. “The NIS Robotics programme has continued to grow this year, with NIS fielding 5 teams in the competition. This growth reflects the tremendous educational value that Robotics can have, fostering critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration among students.”

Building on these skills, four NIS teams made their way through the gruelling qualifying rounds into the finals, with team “84236B – Checkmate” qualifying in 4th place.

In the elimination finals, our teams fought valiantly, facing many extremely skilled opponents, including the current World No.1 Team “2053X – PXRO” from Shanghai American School Puxi. 84236B – Checkmate, who teamed up with another SAS Puxi Team, “2053V – Chubucas,” battled their way through to the semi-finals, going down in a tough match to the eventual competition winners “2053X – PXRO” from SAS Puxi and “85301X – No!” from TIS Macau.

As one of the first scrimmages on the ACAMIS calendar, it was a fabulous day of action-packed competition, preparing the students and their robots for the rest of the season. 

“NIS seeks to inspire International Mindedness, Personal Excellence, and Creative thinking and this event achieved all of that and more,” said Mr. Brady. “By participating in robotics competitions such as this, students are encouraged to excel personally through teamwork and perseverance and build robots with that competitive edge through original and creative thinking.” 

From here, the NIS Robotics team has its eyes set on qualifying for the ACAMIS National Championships in Guangzhou. To achieve this, they will need to continue to do well in the upcoming events, the first of those being the APAC Invitational at Shanghai American School Pudong and then the Regional Qualifiers at Concordia in Shanghai.