The conversation about Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a constantly evolving presence in the lives of educators. It is inevitable that AI will become a central part of students’ lives. Although we are only beginning to understand what this will look like, we know we must begin to prepare our students for their futures now. This page is a springboard for teaching AI with VEX and provides an overview of information and resources available to support you as you integrate AI into your teaching practice.
The Importance of AI
Defining AI
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is a branch of computer science concerned with techniques that allow computers to do things that, when people do them, are considered evidence of intelligence1.
AI is a pivotal and ongoing development in the evolution of computer science that will continue to greatly affect all parts of society. It builds on core computer science concepts like algorithms and data structures, allowing computers to learn, reason, and make decisions on their own.
Everyone Should Learn About AI
Computer science is now widely recognized as an essential skill for all students. As AI is an integral part of computer science, all students deserve to have a fundamental understanding of the concepts underlying AI. AI concepts can be taught on a continuum beginning in Kindergarten and extending throughout students’ educational journeys. This will ensure students:
- Have Equitable Access to Future Careers: Teaching AI ensures all students have the chance to explore career paths in fields like computer science, robotics, data analysis, and software engineering. By providing opportunities for everyone, we help create a diverse, innovative workforce ready for the future.
- Understand AI’s Impact on Society: Learning AI equips students with the knowledge to grasp its potential. By understanding its benefits and limitations, students can make informed decisions and contribute to the responsible use of this technology.
- Build Essential Skills and Dispositions: Just as learning computer science does, teaching AI using computer science fosters essential problem-solving abilities and helps students develop computational thinking skills, like algorithmic thinking and pattern recognition. It also gives students an environment in which to practice collaboration, and learn about their own learning. This prepares them to tackle complex challenges with persistence and creativity.
Our Approach to Teaching AI
We bring together computer science, AI, and robotics to provide an authentic context for learning AI that is safe, fun and motivating. We emphasize hands-on robotics and AI Vision Sensors rather than Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT.
Student Privacy is Our Highest Priority
Our approach ensures your students' data is always secure.
- Using Robots with AI Vision Sensors to teach about AI offers hands-on and visually engaging ways to explore AI concepts without the potential privacy risks present with LLMs.
- No personally identifiable (PII) data is ever collected.
- Images or video streams from VEX sensors or robots never leaves a student device.
- Students are provided with pre-trained AI models, eliminating the need for students to collect and upload images to powerful and expensive cloud servers for processing.
Robots Make AI Learning Visible
Fundamental AI concepts can be made tangible using robots.
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- Teaching AI with a robot turns challenging abstract concepts into concrete, hands-on learning experiences. Using robots to emphasize the computer science concepts behind AI gives students direct experience with how AI actually works. This demystifies AI and helps students see themselves as future innovators and problem solvers in the field of AI.
- AI Vision Sensors provide immediate, actionable feedback to students. Students can see and manipulate data from an AI Vision Sensor in real time, and apply it to coding projects to solve real-world problems using a robot.
Evolving Along with AI
Our approach to AI education is continuously and actively evolving.
- AI is evolving constantly and rapidly, and to effectively support teachers and students in this dynamic environment, we must evolve at the same pace. The coming years will bring more personalization, more collaboration and more transparency to AI systems, and we will continue to develop resources accordingly, to ensure students and educators can thrive.
- We are committed to meeting teachers’ needs in the moment by creating easy-to-implement AI curricular materials with teacher input. We are collaborating with the CS Everyone Center at the University of Florida along with two cohorts of elementary teachers to create a unit of instruction on the AI concept of perception using VEX 123 and VEX GO, for K-4 students. In this unit, students use the Eye Sensor on 123 and GO Robots to explore an unseen planet created by a peer, identifying different colored objects like "aliens" (green), "water" (blue), and "unique materials" (red).
AI Across the VEX Continuum
The VEX Continuum blends hands-on, real world experiences with developmentally appropriate practices to ensure students of all ages can be engaged and successful throughout their AI learning journey. Experiential learning builds incremental understanding of computer science and AI concepts. Over time, students develop a foundational understanding of what AI is, how it works, and how it can be used.
VEX 123
Students from Kindergarten through second grade can be introduced to AI concepts with VEX 123. Coding a 123 Robot helps students to begin developing an understanding of the differences in the way humans and computers sense their environments. The 123 Robot’s built-in Eye Sensor provides an easy way for students to begin exploring sensor data, while at the same time learning foundational computer science concepts such as sequencing, pattern recognition and basic algorithms.
123 STEM Lab Units, such as Little Red Robot, provide an engaging and fun backdrop for learning these concepts. In this STEM Lab Unit, students code their robots to drive to grandmother’s house, avoid the wolf, and create a wolf-detecting algorithm using the Eye Sensor.
For more information about VEX 123, visit this page.
For more information about VEX 123 STEM Lab Units, visit this page.
VEX GO
Third through fifth graders can build on their introductory AI experiences with VEX GO, as they expand their knowledge to include a more in-depth understanding of sensor data. Students gain understanding of what data is, how it is collected, and how it can be used to make decisions.
In the Data Detectives: Bridge Challenge STEM Lab, students solve a real-world problem using Eye Sensor Data, as they learn to use the data to identify a crack in a bridge.
Experiences like this help students build an understanding of how data and AI can be used to help their communities. And, VEX GO students continue to grow their computer science skills as they engage in solving more complex problems using sequencing, decision-making and algorithms.
For more information about VEX GO, visit this page.
For more information about VEX GO STEM Lab Units, visit this page.
VEX AIM
VEX AIM is a new robot for teaching computer science in grades 4 and up. AIM is equipped with a built-in AI Vision Sensor, providing hands-on opportunities for exploring AI concepts through both block and Python coding. AIM is easy to get started with and provides a high ceiling, allowing it to meet students where they are in their understanding of AI and to continue to challenge them as they grow.
VEX AIM’s release is right around the corner, and will be accompanied by STEM Lab Units as well as an Intro Course in PD+ for teachers, to make integrating AIM into CS and STEM classrooms as effortless as possible.
For more information about VEX AIM, visit this page.
VEX IQ
VEX IQ provides middle school students with additional AI learning challenges using a physical robot. IQ gives students the opportunity to solve open-ended challenges by collecting and using data from multiple sensors. This helps students to develop an understanding of how to choose the right sensors to solve a given problem.
IQ students can also engage in data logging exercises using SD card storage on the IQ Brain. Students can collect sensor data, store it in a CSV file, and then graph the data to fully understand how IQ sensors are perceiving their environments.
IQ Students continue to build computer science skills as well, creating algorithms to solve real world problems in coding-focused IQ Competition STEM Labs, such as the Castle Crasher STEM Lab Unit.
For more information about VEX IQ, see this page.
For more information about VEX IQ STEM Lab Units, see this page.
VEX EXP and VEX V5
In the High School classroom, VEX EXP and VEX V5 add another dimension to AI learning with the AI Vision Sensor.
The AI Vision Sensor for VEX EXP and VEX V5 enables your robot to see and interact with its surroundings uniquely, capturing visual information from a wide field of view. It detects 2D and 3D objects, recognizes specific colors and color combinations, and identifies AprilTags and sets of pre-trained objects for both the classroom and competition.
The AI Vision Sensor gives students the opportunity to use multiple types of sensor data in one coding project. Additionally, because the sensor contains two pre-trained object detection models, students can experience how different AI models work in real-world applications. The EXP Clean Water Mission STEM Lab Unit provides a hands-on, advanced resource for students in which they use data from the sensor, creating complex algorithms to automate a portable water treatment plant.
For more information about the AI Vision Sensor, read Getting Started with the AI Vision Sensor with VEX EXP.
For more information about purchasing a VEX AI Vision Sensor, visit this page.
VEX CTE Workcell
The VEX CTE Workcell is another high-school level option for students to engage with AI topics. The VEX CTE Workcell is a system of a robotic arm, conveyors, sensors and pneumatics that is designed to support students in learning about industrial automation. Two student courses are available for teaching students important AI-related automation and computer science skills.
The Introduction to the 6-Axis Arm course provides students with a scaffolded foundation in basic computer science skills, such as sequencing, loops, conditionals and variables.
The Workcell Automation course builds on this to include progressively more complex open-ended challenges in automating the system. In these challenges, students must use sensor data to create algorithms, optimize their code, and debug projects successfully.
For more information about the VEX CTE Workcell, see this page.
For more information about VEX CTE STEM Lab Unit Courses, see this page.
VEX AIR
The VEX AIR Drone provides an additional hands-on way for advanced students to engage with AI learning. VEX AIR will combine the excitement of classroom drones with AI technology. Students can use the combination of AIR's dual camera system and its ability to detect pre-trained objects along with multiple sensors to code the drone to navigate through the air with precision.
For more information about VEX AIR, visit this page.
AI in VEX Competitions
VEX AI Competition
The VEX AI Competition gives high school and college students a chance to compete in a completely autonomous robotics competition using the powerful combination of the GPS Sensor and the VEX AI Vision System. Students code two robots to work together as a team to complete this year’s challenge.
For more information, visit the VEX AI Competition page.
VEX V5 Robotics Competition (V5RC)
Students can use the AI Vision Sensor's ability to detect pre-trained object classifications to create algorithms in combinations with a variety of other V5 sensors when building a strategy for playing V5RC High Stakes. In doing so, they can explore how computers maintain data-based representations and use them for reasoning.
For more information about the VEX V5 Robotics Competition, visit the VEX V5 Robotics Competition page.
VEX V5 GPS Sensor
Use the GPS Sensor in V5RC Competition or Virtual Skills to navigate the field based on heading and x, y positioning data provided by the sensor.
For more information about the GPS Sensor, read Using the GPS Sensor with VEX V5.
For more information about purchasing the V5 GPS Sensor, visit this page.
AI in VEXcode VR
V5RC High Stakes Playground
Those with a VEXcode VR premium license, or registered V5RC teams, can play High Stakes with a Virtual Robot, using the AI Vision Sensor’s object classification capabilities.
For more information about getting a VEXcode VR Premium License, visit this page.
For more information about the High Stakes Playground in VEXcode VR, read Get Started with the V5RC High Stakes Playground in VEXcode VR.
Rover Rescue Playground
VEXcode VR Premium users can engage with AI representation and reasoning in the Rover Rescue Playground. In Rover Rescue, students code a rover using AI to navigate an alien world while collecting minerals and avoiding obstacles and enemies. The Rover's built-in AI technology allows it to detect objects and report data about them, including how far away an object is, and its relative angle. The Rover can identify pre-trained game elements such as obstacles, enemies, and minerals.
For more information about the Rover Rescue playground in VEXcode VR, read Getting Started with Rover Rescue.
For more information about AI in Rover Rescue, read Using AI in Rover Rescue.
For more information about getting a VEXcode VR Premium License, visit this page.
Teach AI With Confidence
VEX provides comprehensive resources and support materials for teaching AI, so you can teach with confidence.
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VEX STEM Labs offer step-by-step instructions for implementation, like an online teacher’s manual.
- In VEX 123 and GO STEM Labs, the Unit Overview provides detailed background information so you feel well prepared to teach the Unit. For example, the VEX GO Data Detectives Unit Background information takes a deep dive into what sensors are, and how the Eye Sensor itself collects and reports data.
- In IQ and EXP STEM Labs, a facilitation guide lays out background information, implementation instructions and tips that eliminate the guesswork from teaching AI.
- The VEX Library and the VEX API are resources anyone can access to learn more about teaching AI with VEX. For example, use the VEX Library to discover what a sensor is and is used for. Then refer to the VEX API to understand the code blocks or commands associated with that sensor.
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VEX PD+ provides ongoing and personalized professional development for VEX users.
- Get certified by taking a VEX Intro Course in PD+ and gain immediate access to the VEX PD+ Community where like-minded educators can share questions and ideas about teaching AI with VEX.
- Join as a PD+ All-Access member and
- Take advantage of 1-on-1 Sessions, where you can discuss teaching AI with a VEX expert.
- Visit the Video Library to view series of videos to learn about the AI Vision Sensor.
- Join us in person at the VEX Robotics Educators Conference and participate in hands-on workshops and informative sessions led by thought leaders in AI education.
For more information about becoming a VEX PD+ All-Access member, visit this page.