Nice piece from WJTV 12 News

Elementary school students from all over Forrest County gathered at Oak Grove Lower Elementary School on Monday night for the local VEX IQ challenge finals.

For the uninitiated, the VEX IQ challenge is a world-wide program that helps kids learn and get excited about science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM for short.
Nadine Amaya is the Robotics Coach at Oak Grove Lower Elementary and she says that her students have really embraced robotics.

“Seeing them begging to come to Robotics practice during recess, after school, before school, ‘can we please work on our robot?’, ‘can we please work on our program?’, and seeing them so excited about learning makes it all worthwhile,” said Amaya.

Amaya says that all of the student’s build and program their own robots, and then use them to see who can get the most points playing different games.

Heidi Boudreaux says her daughter has already learned so much from this program.

“She’s definitely more outgoing, she’s definitely working as a team better, even just with her own brother,” said Boudreaux. “Like, I’ll see her in the bedroom being master-builders with their LEGOS and just like, I watch her teach him how to put things together.