The University of British Columbia
UBC - A Place of Mind
The University of British Columbia Vancouver campus
ETEC 522 – Ventures in Learning Technologies
  • Startup
    • How to Begin?
    • Objectives
    • Course Manual
    • Outline & Schedule
    • Participation Guide
    • Assignments
    • ☛ Introduce Yourself!
    • 👥 Authors
  • W01: Emerging Markets
    • W01: Emerging Market Teams
  • W02-04: Bootcamp
    • Global Dynamics
    • Who is the Customer?
    • What is a Venture?
    • 👥 Opportunity Horizon
    • W03: Analyst Bootcamp
    • A Game with Three Pitches
    • Deconstructing a Pitch
    • 👥 Pitch Critique
    • W04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
    • Venture Genesis
    • Opportunity Activation
    • The Right Stuff
    • 👥 Founders Parade
  • W05-12: Opportunity Forecasts
    • W05: Personalized Learning
    • W06: Mobile Learning
    • W07: Game-Based Learning
    • W08: Big Data & Learning Analytics
    • W09: Immersive Experience
    • W10: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
    • W11: Microlearning
    • W12: Wearables
  • W13: Launch
    • Venture Forum Resources
  • Forums
    • W01 – Emerging Markets
    • W02 – Market Projections
    • W03 – Pitch Pool
    • W04 – Founders Parade
    • W05-12 – Opportunity Forecasts (A2)
    • W13 – Venture Forum (A3)
    • Analyst Reports (A1)
  • Global Feeds
    • Announcements
    • Eva’s Café
    • Radio 522
  • LOGIN
Sort By
Show only these categories:
Show only this category:

Tony and Bob – VEX Robotics – Part of Innovation First

By gregory regehr on January 30, 2020

Founders: Tony Norman and Bob Mimlitch

Vex Robotics – Our Story

VEX Robotics

The mission of VEX is to “create tools that educators and ventures will use to shape the learners of today into the problem-solving leaders of tomorrow.” VEX is striving to meet the need for innovators, thinkers and problem solvers.  It embraces all facets of STEM education, through the robotics lens. They want students to learn how fun it can be to solve challenging problems through the construction of a robot. Vex makes robots that are used for education and for competition. VEX has been in more than 60 countries and is continuing to grow. It is a highly engaging and rewarding educational technology. Their website highlights how many countries, schools, etc. that it has been involved in. VEX has also won numerous awards throughout the years, including the best Educational Toy in 2016, holding the Guinness World Record for the World’s Largest Robotics Competition.

Founders:

Tony Norman is an Electrical Engineer and Bob Mimlitch is a Mechanical engineer. They met early in their careers and discovered that they both had the same beliefs about “the right way to do things” during the problem-solving process. Both men had a passion for teaching robotics. They started their company in a garage and eventually became a global company. The started Innovation First. They are passionate about STEM mentorship and robotics and problem-solving.

Their goal is to develop critical thinkers and problem solvers and they understand that in order to do this they need to have good people working with them. They indicate on their website their greatest assets aren’t motors or gears- they’re people. They love to see people get excited about learning, especially about STEM and they want to use that motivation to build their company.

Websites:

https://www.vexrobotics.com/about-us

https://www.vexrobotics.com/about-us/our-story

https://www.innovationfirst.com/about/

Rating
Average: 4/5 Stars
 
 
 
 
 
0 Thumbs Up!

Read More | No Comments

Loading...
1 Feb Posted on Tony and Bob – VEX Robotics – Part of Innovation First

VEX is fantastic. I have taught robotics for about five years and have used Lego Mindstorm and VEX systems. The Mindstorm has been great for middle school-aged students but the VEX has been incredible for my senior students. Anytime they can work 'hands-on' it's always engaging. I have many kids who want to take the class but can't get in due to class size limits (and my own sanity). They way VEX has married their curriculum and kits with global competitions, giving potential robotics clubs a goal to aim for. I think they knew this when they started out and it's a stroke of genius. I will say that in order for schools to attend and compete in the VEX competitions they must buy the necessary implements from VEX that change every year. I can tell you they aren't inexpensive for schools. The classroom kits alone cost $1200, and I managed to get enough grants scraped together to have 10 full sets for my lab. For the mainstream public school it's almost out of reach.

1 Feb
0 Thumbs Up!
Scott Richmond @scrich17

VEX is fantastic. I have taught robotics for about five years and have used Lego Mindstorm and VEX systems. The Mindstorm has been great for middle school-aged students but the VEX has been incredible for my senior students. Anytime they can work 'hands-on' it's always engaging. I have many kids who want to take the class but can't get in due to class size limits (and my own sanity). They way VEX has married their curriculum and kits with global competitions, giving potential robotics clubs a goal to aim for. I think they knew this when they started out and it's a stroke of genius. I will say that in order for schools to attend and compete in the VEX competitions they must buy the necessary implements from VEX that change every year. I can tell you they aren't inexpensive for schools. The classroom kits alone cost $1200, and I managed to get enough grants scraped together to have 10 full sets for my lab. For the mainstream public school it's almost out of reach.

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Tony and Bob – VEX Robotics – Part of Innovation First
  • Loading...
  • Previous
  • Next
Show only this category:
How to Begin

Custom Search

Tags

2014 2015 2016

Faculty of Education
Vancouver Campus
2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4
Website pdce.educ.ubc.ca/
Email pdce.educ@ubc.ca
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility