| | INSIDE THE BAY AREA’S PREMIER STEM PREP HUB | April 2026 |
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The Award, the Send-Off, the Reveal |
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Welcome back to RoboRumbles. This edition is a loaded one. We're recapping our teams' participation at the VEX World Championship in St. Louis, celebrating Demo Day across all four Bay Area centers, and breaking down the brand new 2026-2027 game challenges that just dropped: Override for V5 and Level Up for IQ. Our RoboFact this month covers the key V5 rule changes every team needs to know heading into the new season. We've also got updates on our Summer Academy at UC Berkeley and our summer camp lineup. Let's dive in. |
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| Robolabs Represents in St. Louis |
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The standout moment of our 2026 VEX Robotics World Championship trip came when middle school team 3134W took home the Judges Award, which is a great honor. The Judges Award goes to teams who demonstrate exceptional qualities that aren't easily captured by the standard awards criteria, and judges select recipients based on what they see and hear throughout the event. It's a recognition of character, creativity, and the story behind the team. A huge well-deserved congratulations to 3134W for this achievement on the world stage. |
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Three Robolabs teams represented us on the world stage in St. Louis: high school teams 3134G and 3457X, and middle school team 3134W. All three teams competed with grit and showed what Robolabs is about. Worlds is the pinnacle of the season, drawing top teams from around the globe, and just earning a spot is an accomplishment in itself. A huge congratulations to our students, coaches, and families who made the journey and represented Robolabs with class. |
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| Demo Day: Push Back's Final Bow |
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Our annual in-house Demo Day brought together teams from all four Bay Area centers (Dublin, Fremont, San Jose Stevens Creek, and San Jose Evergreen) for one final celebration of the Push Back season. It was a packed, high-energy day with strong matches, last-minute strategy tweaks, and plenty of cheering from families and friends. Top-performing teams walked away with cash prizes, leaving the venue with oversized checks in hand (photos below!). Every team got to put their Push Back robots through one last competitive run before the season officially closed. Demo Day is always a special tradition because it's where our community comes together as one, regardless of center. Thanks to everyone who came out to make it memorable. |
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| 3134E / 3134P - Tournament Champions |
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| 3457Z / 3340E - Tournament Finalists |
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| 3134E - Skills Champions 2nd Place |
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| 3203D / 3203G - Teamwork Champions |
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| 3203E - Robot Skills 1st Place |
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| 3203G - Robot Skills 2nd Place |
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| Meet Override and Level Up |
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The 2026-2027 season is officially here, and both games are now revealed. |
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VEX V5 — Override: Teams score by stacking Pins and Cups onto 9 Goals spread across the field. There are 119 scoring objects in play (56 Cups and 63 Pins), and Cups come with one opaque side and one transparent side, meaning a Pin's color only counts if it's actually visible through the Cup. The wildcard mechanic is the Toggle: flipping a Toggle changes who gets credit for the yellow Pins in that quadrant, allowing for dramatic late-match score swings. The match ends with a Midfield contest in the final 10 seconds where robots must drop to under 18 inches tall and hold their ground inside the boundary. New this season: a 55-watt drivetrain limit that will force teams to rethink power budgets. |
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VEX IQ — Level Up: The scoring objects this season are beanbags (red, yellow, and blue), with 38 total in play. Teams score by delivering bags to color-matching floor goals or multi-level pyramid goals stationed at opposite corners. The pyramids have three levels of scoring height (worth 3, 6, and 12 points respectively), and floor goals are worth 1 point each. The standout twist this year is the Level 4 Platform: two narrow platforms standing 24 inches tall and only 7 inches wide in the center of the field, reserved exclusively for yellow beanbags and worth 16 points each. The field also features two 8-inch fences that create navigation paths, with a strategic option for smaller robots to drive underneath them. Robots can only possess one beanbag at a time, so teamwork and routing efficiency will be critical. |
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| | | 💡 RoboFacts: What V5 Teams Need to Know this Season
Heads up to all V5 teams: two big structural rule changes this season are worth knowing. No more anodizing, painting, or dyeing parts (R23A). You can no longer change the color of any legal VEX part. Powder-coated C-channels and dyed gears, once standard on top robots, are now illegal.
No PTOs allowed on the drivetrain (R11). Power takeoffs can't share motor power between the drive and other subsystems. Teams have to choose: 44W drive or the full 55W. Subsystem-to-subsystem PTOs (lift, intake, etc.) are still legal.
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| One Week. UC Berkeley. A Program Unlike Any Other. |
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| | | . Summer program season is here, and if your student is serious about robotics and AI, we want to make sure this is on your radar. The Robolabs VEX AI Summer Academy at UC Berkeley is back this July, and we genuinely don't know of another week-long program that covers this much ground.
The curriculum goes deep: machine learning fundamentals, neural networks, computer vision, autonomous robotics, and all the way into transformer architectures and how LLMs fit into the world of self-driving robots. Students work hands-on with NVIDIA Jetson processors and Intel RealSense cameras, and hear from industry speakers from places like Amazon, Tesla, and Google. All of it set on the campus of the number one public university in the world.
Beyond the lab, students live in UC Berkeley dorms, dine on campus, and explore the Bay Area with trips to San Francisco and Silicon Valley. It's part summer camp, part college preview, part technical bootcamp. |
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| | Summer Camps Are Back, Up to 9 Weeks of Hands-On Fun! |
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Summer at Robolabs means one thing: robots, creativity, and nine weeks of unforgettable learning. From June 8 to August 7, our full- and half-day camps are running across all fours of our locations: Dublin, Fremont, San Jose Steven Creek and Evergreen.
Whether your child is a first-time builder or a seasoned VEX IQ pro, each week offers hands-on engineering, problem-solving, and innovation. Already enrolled? Spread the word. Spots are still available, and it’s a great chance for friends and family to join the fun! |
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| | VEX AI World Championship at UC Berkeley! |
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Mark your calendars. On June 12–14, 2026, Robolabs will be the official host of the VEX AI World Championship at UC Berkeley. This is one of the most prestigious events in competitive robotics, and it is coming to our backyard. Our AI team will be competing on the very floor we are organizing, which makes this moment extra meaningful. More details to come. |
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| | Hands-on and immersive VEX and FIRST Robotics for kindergarten - 12th grade. |
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| | Fun, and valuable Robotics learning over a break. For students from 1st to 12th grade. |
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| | Journey to become a high-school author and inventor! |
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| | Leverage the entirety of Robolabs to get you into your dream college. |
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| Summer Academy at UC Berkeley |
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| Explore AI and robotics at UC Berkeley with expert mentors. |
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| | Design and code real-world apps from scratch. |
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| | Master SolidWorks & Onshape to design real robotics parts. |
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| | Create, prototype, and build your own product with 3D printing and CNC milling. |
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| | DUBLIN ROBOTICS CLUB, ROBOLABS DUBLIN |
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