Greetings VEX Teams,

VEX TEAM AND EVENT GROWTH

A few weeks ago we shared that the VEX Robotics Competition program had already grown to over 1300 teams and 150 events around the world. It seems the growth has not slowed down, as the team count exceeded 1600 this past week and even more new events have been added, pushing the total number of VEX competitions to almost 160! This upcoming week there will be 125 different teams participating at 5 more events in California, Florida, Hawaii, Nebraska and Massachusetts. There will be 25 more events in the next 4 weeks - in 13 different states and 4 countries (Brazil, Japan, Colombia and Australia). 10 upcoming events have already filled and are closed for registration now, with a number of other competitions already 80-90% full, so be sure to get your teams signed up soon for any upcoming events you wish to participate in before they fill up.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FIRST GROUP OF QUALIFIERS

We'd like to congratulate the first teams to qualify for the 2010 VEX Robotics World Championship (April 22-24, 2010 in Dallas) and the Championship of the Americas (March 18-20, 2010 in Omaha) at recent events in Hawaii, California and New Hampshire. We've received great feedback from the competitions and are thrilled they've run so smoothly. Special thanks to all the amazing Event Partners organizing and running all tournaments for providing so many affordable opportunities for teams to participate.

VEX ROBOTICS ALL-STAR CHALLENGE AT DISNEY'S WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS® COMPLEX

For those still thinking of attending the Inaugural Walt Disney World All-Star Challenge in November, event registration will close next week. There are only about 15 of the discounted Disney room packages still available for teams, so be sure to sign up in the next week if your team does plan to enter. You can find the specific event information here.

2009 VEX ROBOTICS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP VIDEO

The VRC World Championship video can now be found and viewed on the VEX Robotics Competition page on RobotEvents. Teams and Event Partners are welcome to use the video to help promote your efforts and recruit more support. We hope it's helpful.

REGIONAL COLLEGE CHALLENGE EVENTS NOW AVAILABLE

The College Challenge now has some new regional competitions available for teams to play at before the World Championship in April. We know many VEX High School graduates want to keep expanding their engineering skills in college, so we look forward to seeing many of them in the College Challenge this year. While we anticipate more regional College Challenge events getting started over the next year, at this point there still aren't regional events available in many areas of the country. With that in mind, we will still allow open registration for the College Challenge World Championship for the first 36 college teams that sign up (meaning they do not have to play somewhere else or qualify to attend). The 2010 VEX Robotics College Challenge World Championship already has more teams set to attend than participated last year, so be sure to get your team signed up if you want to get one of the 36 guaranteed spots.

Remember to visit Robotevents.com to view the full listing of all local events around the world for the 2009-2010 VEX Robotics Competition Season and to sign up for any of the upcoming tournaments.

We can't wait to see all the amazing robots and great teams at the upcoming competitions and wish you all the best in the upcoming season!