HONOLULU – More than 800 middle school and high school students from Hawai'i, the U.S. Mainland, China and Japan will descend upon the Hawai'i Convention Center from Dec. 4-6 for the Inaugural VEX Robotics Pan-Pacific Championship.

The team-based robotics competition, which is free and open to the public, will put students' engineering and high-tech skills to the test in three days of competition with robots created from the VEX Robotics Design System.

For the past several months, students, with guidance from their teachers and mentors, have worked together to build robots designed to solve a set of challenges presented in the game. During the competition, 83 student teams from 65 Hawai'i, mainland and Asian schools will square off in the game of "Elevation." The object of the "Elevation" challenge is to place cubes into goals of various heights, or "elevations," and to "own" goals by having the highest cube in a given goal. The teams' robots that can reach to the highest levels most effectively and efficiently will dominate. Team scores can be enhanced by "parking" on the platform or by "controlling" the bonus cube.

Ten teams from the VEX Pan-Pacific Championship will advance to the VEX Robotics World Championship taking place at the Dallas Convention Center and Arena April 30-May 2. At the World Championship, these winning teams will have the opportunity to challenge their top-ranked peers from other countries around the world, including countries from the Asian Robotics League, South America and Europe.

Robotics education is a key component of the Lingle-Aiona Administration's Hawai'i Innovation Initiative, which seeks to transform Hawai'i's economy from one based on land development to one based on the innovative capacity of Hawai'i's residents, especially our youth. Robotics provides students with a strong educational foundation in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and offers them opportunities to solve problems, work as teams and think analytically – skills useful in any career.

VEX Robotics is one of six major programs in which Hawai'i students can participate. In addition to VEX, other programs are offered by FIRST Robotics, FIRST LEGO League, Botball, Underwater Remote Operating Vehicle (ROV), and Micro Robotics.

Recognizing the importance of promoting robotics at an early age and sustaining students' interest in STEM education throughout their schooling, the six robotics programs which previously operated autonomously earlier this year joined together to form the Hawai'i Robotics Organizing Committee (ROC) (www.robotics.hawaii.gov <http://www.robotics.hawaii.gov> ). This is the first time all six of the robotics programs have coordinated their efforts to promote robotics education in elementary, middle and high schools statewide.