Kiwibots exist to provide opportunities that grow the capability of New Zealand's future innovators and creative thinkers. Find out more about how we future-proof Kiwi kids with robotics. Kiwibots inspires and empowers the next generation of innovators and creative thinkers. Our programmes provide rangatahi (youth) with opportunities to develop communication, collaboration, and creativity: skills that future-proof Kiwi kids. We are a charitable organisation that proudly facilitates Aotearoa New Zealand's only large scale robotics education + competition programme covering all levels of schooling from primary through tertiary. Kiwibots at a Glance Kiwibots helps students to learn science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) in a fun and engaging way. We achieve this through various robotics tools, primarily VEX Robotics; a global leader in robotics education. Early engagement with STEAM education ensures that young Kiwis are equipped for a future in the tech industry. Our unique Kiwi ‘Number 8 wire' methods of design & problem-solving play a key role. Rangatahi that go through our programmes gain invaluable experience in: Creative problem solving Teamwork (especially under pressure!) Engineering design Working with complex electronics Hands-on building and material work Coding and IT Skills Cross-cultural relationship building Accolades Kiwibots are World Champions with VEX Excellence (Team JANK) and Design (Team WINGU5) Awards at university level. We've worked with 10,000+ NZ tauira (students) aged 8 and up through VEX competitions, and even more with our education programmes. More than 2000 young Kiwis have represented Aotearoa at the VEX World Championships, and our teams have won awards at international level 15 times. See All Awards How Does it Work? Kiwibots manages three levels of competitions, aimed at different school ages: VEX IQ – Up to age 15 VEX V5RC (VEX Robotics Challenge) – Up to age 18 VEX U (University) Teams can comprise school groups or independents. With the support of a coach, the students do all the design, building, programming and operating themselves. Each year, in line with the Northern Hemisphere school calendar, VEX releases a new design challenge for students across the world to solve by designing and building innovative robotic solutions. Get Involved VEX 123 Kindergarten – Year 3 VEX Go Primary School VEX IQ Primary – Intermediate (Elementary – Middle School) VEX V5 Intermediate – Secondary (Middle – High School) VEX U University (College) "Achieving success with the smallest things on a robot started me down a path of becoming interested in all things mechanical." - Vincent, Auckland VEX V5RC alumni Contact Kiwibots Fill out the form to learn more about our mahi & how you can get involved – we'll be in touch as soon as possible. If you have a pressing matter, reach out to our National Operations Manager directly: Michelle Hazeleger-Mollard contact@kiwibots.co.nz +64 21 298 9492 I want to subscribe to the newsletter. Submit Tēnā koe! Thank you!

Elementary School Registration Middle School Registration 2025/26 Kiwibots VEX NZ Nationals We look forward to seeing you at Aotearoa New Zealand's largest STEM robotics competitions! Mark the dates in your calendar now! 5th–7th December 2025: Kiwibots VIQRC Nationals Fly Palmy Arena, Manawatū 31st January 2026: Kiwibots VEX University Nationals Waipapa Taumata Rau – University of Auckland 20th–22nd February 2026: Kiwibots V5RC Nationals Onehunga High School, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland Volunteer at VIQRC Nationals V5RC Registration Volunteer at V5RC Nationals

VEX Curriculum & Resources VEX STEM Labs VEX Robotics partnered with teachers to create STEM Labs: free lesson plans designed for seamless classroom integration. Kiwibots have mapped these to the NZ Curriculum for even easier adoption. EASY Clear, structured, and easy to use FLEXIBLE Adaptable formats with pacing guides FUN! Hands-on, engaging, and collaborative STEM Labs for Computer Science Education STEM Labs for High School STEM Labs for Intermediate + Upper Primary STEM Labs for Years 3–6 STEM Labs for ages 4+ NZ Curriculum Alignments Hangarau Matahiko & NCEA Our role here at Kiwibots is to help educators with their work in sharing the love of STEM and inspiring a lifelong passion. To help out with your lesson planning, we have all of the STEM Labs mapped to the relevant year levels so that you can quickly see if a certain STEM Lab will fulfil the Progress Outcomes you're after, or how much that Lab can support various Achievement Standards. These are available for free - simply click the link below to download and see the mapping. If you are unsure about which VEX Product group best suits your students, check out the Curriculum Map for all VEX products that outlines all of the year levels and where they overlap. NZ Curriculum Map for all VEX Products NZ Curriculum Map NZ Curriculum Map NZ Curriculum Map NZ Curriculum Map NZ Curriculum Map VEX Certification Anybody in New Zealand (teacher, coach, parent, anyone!), can gain VEX Certification online, opening up access to a growing global community of users and resources in many Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). The VEX Certification System is available to all users at no cost and VEX and the REC Foundation have compiled many resources to help people gain their certification. The VEX Certification System demonstrates to other educators (and volunteers) that VEX certified educators understand the fundamentals of using and implementing VEX Robotics. The VEX Certification System also allows REC Foundation volunteers to demonstrate competency in various aspect of running a REC Foundation event. In addition to the lessons in the training courses, users will also have the opportunity to take practice exams, ensuring that they are completely prepared for the certification exam. Read More

The Board of the New Zealand Robotics Charitable Trust, (Kiwibots), is delighted to advise of the appointment of Michelle Hazeleger-Mollard as our new National Operations Manager, 10th December 2021. Michelle is an educator with a Masters in Educational Leadership, based in Palmerston North. She joins us after her role as a teacher and International Student Academic Manager at St. Peter’s College since 2014. Michelle may be a familiar face to some, having been involved with Kiwibots programmes as a parent and event volunteer for 7+ years. She has also worked all over the world, including Thailand and Japan, as well as time spent living in India working as Deputy Principal at an international school, in Delhi. The Board is extremely excited to be welcoming Michelle into this role as Kiwibots continues to grow. With Nationals fast approaching and previous National Manager, Janet Van Jenkins, now based overseas and supporting from afar, we will do our best to keep things running smoothly for the community in this handover. We would like to thank our incredible Regional Coordinators, volunteers, schools and students for their commitment and support through this period of change. We will be arranging for Michelle to meet with the volunteers, communities and schools throughout the country at the earliest opportunity. We would also like to thank Fisher & Paykel Healthcare for their support with the recruitment process these last months. We look forward to working with you to continue expanding Kiwibots programme across Aotearoa to future-proof Kiwi kids. Mike Hearn Chair New Zealand Robotics Charitable Trust (Kiwibots)

Over the last year and a half, we have had the privilege of running in person and online events for the community as we change between Alert Levels on this pandemic rollercoaster. A huge thanks to all of our community for being so understanding and adapting to the systems we've been putting in place to help prioritise everyone's safety. The new habit of RSVPing and checking in on arrival has helped immensely in the last few lockdowns, allowing us to work directly with MOH to quickly contact trace and communicate with attendees. With the restrictions changing for the current Delta variant, we've updated our protocols to reflect the extra measures we will be implementing to ensure event safety for the Kiwibots community. Please read the information below carefully. Capacity and Registration With indoor events being limited to 50 participants and spectators, RSVP-ing individual attendance via www.kiwibots.co.nz/upcoming-events prior to the event will be mandatory. Entry may be denied to unregistered individuals who walk-in on the day. A volunteer will be at the venue entry point to assist with this checking in too. Many regions may now also host multiple events on a single day by splitting IQ and VRC - so please check our events page carefully so that you register for the correct scrimmage. Read the event details - some events may limit how many teams from an organisation, or how many ākonga/students per team, may attend. If you incorrectly register for an event, please let us know at contact@kiwibots.co.nz or email your Regional Coordinator so we can remove you from the incorrect event and free up a space. Checking in on our system is compulsory and additional to the government issued QR COVID-19 scanning system. This is because we recognise many students may not have their own personal devices and are legally required to keep our own records. Venues Once again, please make sure you read the information on the Kiwibots Events page carefully, as regions may host multiple scrimmages at different venues, different rooms within a venue (e.g. Gym and the Hall), or at different times. As many venues do not allow for events at Level 2, please be prepared that venues may change to those that can host events and visitors at Level 2. If you have already registered to an event and the venue changes, our team will endeavour to let you know with plenty of warning. Venues will have a single entry point to help manage sign-ins and ensure we stay within capacity limits. Event Hygiene and Safety Things are going to look a bit different at Delta 2. Some things stay the same though - do not attend an event if you are showing any cold or flu-like symptoms, get tested and let us know you will not be attending so we can remove you from the RSVP list. Remember to regularly wash your hands, avoid touching your face and sneeze or cough into your elbow. Volunteers Kiwibots event volunteers (Regional Coordinators and any additional volunteers critical to event support, referees, Tournament Manager tech, etc.) will be wearing Kiwibots teal shirts and face masks for all events at Delta 2. Volunteers for events will be staying in a volunteer capacity for the event, and should not be a general supporter that between matches offers to help reset the field and 'change roles'. This is due to event volunteers not coming within the 50 person capacity. If you would like to offer to volunteer for an event, please contact your Regional Coordinator prior to the event. Mask Wearing Mask-wearing is not compulsory at Delta 2 for our attendees (non-volunteers), however in line with the Ministry of Health guidelines, we do strongly recommend them for individuals aged 12 and over given the number of teams from across the region in attendance, and possible difficulties with physical distancing in some venues. Cleaning There will be hand sanitisers available at entry to the venue and at the match fields. Please feel free to bring your own hand sanitiser as well. Shared surfaces such as trestle tables, high-touch areas and Kiwibots devices etc. will undergo a pre- and post- event sanitisation. Please be prepared to assist with this as Regional Coordinators may ask each team to help with wiping down their team's trestle table/workspace at the beginning and end of each event. Teams may wipe down their tables more frequently throughout the event if they wish, simply ask the Regional Coordinator for the sanitising spray. If you have any questions about the updated Delta 2 protocols for events, please feel free to get in touch with us directly at contact@kiwibots.co.nz. Events will not take place at Level 3 or higher, and we are reviewing how new Alert Levels impact our major events, so please do stay tuned as we work through these difficult times. We can't wait to safely put events back on for our Kiwibots kids, and thank you all for being so understanding as we find ways to navigate how to get events back for you all. Kia kaha Aotearoa!

With NZ's tech success story, Rocket Lab, going public yesterday - it's a timely reminder to look at all the incredible successes our students achieve every year on the global stage at the VEX World Championships. Kiwibots kids are absolutely following in the footsteps of changemakers like Peter Beck, and we can't wait for the future with these kids at the helm. With support from The Royal Society, our students competed in the live virtual championships of May this year and snagged a number of top awards for Aotearoa. We are so proud of them as we won an award at every grade too! Ka pai koutou! 👏 It's worth noting in this too that we were lucky enough to run a primarily in-person season for 2020-21, and as such the students had robots designed for the in-person rules. In some ways, our students were disadvantaged heading into the worlds against teams who had spend the last 6-10 months preparing for online challenges with designs specific to those rules, so we are especially proud of how well our tamariki adapted and rose to the challenge. Throw into the mix some very early morning starts for our young'uns as they do their interviews at 6am NZST to meet with judges in the USA. Thanks to all the teachers and parents who supported them through a pretty exhausting week! A massive congratulations to all our teams that represented NZ on the world stage in Live Remote Tournaments and Live Remote Skills - Lynfield College, Rubixcoders, Skywalker Robotics, House of Science Tauranga, NakiBots, TopCat, Palmerston North Intermediate Normal School, and College Street Normal School. 🏆 House of Science Tauranga 8757A - Engineering subdivision champions and Innovate Award winners 🏆 Skywalker Robotics 3168S - Create Award winners 🏆 College Street Normal School 2223E Phoenix - Innovate Award winners 🏆 AURA - VEX Innovators Award 🏆 Craig Yearbury - Inspiration All-Star Award and VEX Hall of Fame