The “A Year of Robotics 2024” Programme and 2024 Vietnam VEX Robotics National Championship aim to popularise robotics education among Vietnamese students, selecting talent for international competitions, and updating robotics knowledge for teachers nationwide.

Within the framework of the programme, the organising board, comprising the STEAM for Vietnam Foundation, the American Centre and the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, said an intensive training programme will be held for teachers across the nation.

Other activities include the launch of an online library of teaching materials for teachers, and a STEAMese Festival slated for August. Meanwhile, a robotics training course for high school students will be opened in autumn.

At the same time, the championship, a playground for all students who love robotics that will be organised to the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation’s standards, will receive registration applications from July and will officially open in September. The competition is to select 40 teams for the world largest robotics competition – the VEX Robotics World Championship 2024.

The organising board hopes to draw more than 300 teams of students from primary and secondary schools, and 50 others from high schools. They will compete across various areas of Teamwork Challenges, Driving Skills Challenges, and Programming Skills Challenge.

The STEAM for Vietnam Foundation will build a library to provide training documents from VEX Robotics and organise a series of conferences to connect robotics experts and participating teams, helping the teams enhance their capacity. It will also give instructions to schools on how to organise friendly competitions to the REC Foundation’s standards.

Last year's edition of the programme provided free robotics training to more than 2,000 students and 500 teachers from 150 schools nationwide. Meanwhile, the VEX IQ Championship 2023 drew more than 150 teams from 30 cities and provinces nationwide.

In May 2023, Vietnam sent 19 robotics teams to the VEX Robotics World Championship 2023 in Texas, the US, ranking fifth in the number of teams, and bringing home five prizes.