Wednesday 29 April 2026

St Louis, Missouri

The Cayman Islands are being represented at the Vex World Robotics Competition this week (28-30 April) in St Louis, Missouri (USA) by two teams from 345Robotics, a local non profit. 

On Tuesday (28 April) the eight Cayman team members participated in the opening Parade of Nations, representing the Cayman Islands among the other 52 nations participating. Over the next two days, they will be playing in 20 qualifying matches.

Each year, U.S.-based REC Foundation sets a VEX Robotics Competition challenge, which thousands of teams across the world seek to meet by designing, building, programming and operating robots using modular parts from the VEX system. This year’s challenge is called “Mix and Match” (video explainer in link): robots are required to gather and stack pins and beams. Over one million young competitors in 20,000 teams from 70+ countries have participated in the 2025-26 Competition.

For the past year, several 345Robotics teams have been designing, building, coding and refining a robot designed to play “Mix and Match”. Now, two teams are here at the World Championships where they are playing a rapid one-minute game, which involves collaboration with other teams, and, separately, games involving driving (using a controller) and also operating completely autonomously.

Ella Galatopoulos (age 14), one of the two members of “Nano Nova” (team 34543G) reflected on the intensity of the competition when their robot stopped working during an intense one-minute match, saying:

“Today, during one of our matches, half of the robot stopped driving, due to a small plastic axel breaking. After the match we were able to communicate and problem solve to work out the problem. It was an amazing chance to use the skills we learnt when building our robot. We learned that even big problems can be caused by the smallest things! ”

345Robotics serves a wide array of children and young people with robotics learning and competition.

 “On behalf of all of the participants, parents and families, mentors and coaches, we are grateful for the support of several local partners who have enabled our two Cayman teams and Caymanian coaches to participate in this year’s event,” said Kendra Okonski, Founder and Director of 345Robotics. 

She continued, “This year we are delighted to work in partnership with the Cayman Islands Ministry of Social Development and Innovation, Hedera Foundation, Reside Cayman, Logic, CWC and RYKI, as well as generous individual donors. A shout out too to our local in-kind community sponsor, Enterprise Cayman, which has played a vital role the past three years in enabling our program to grow and thrive.  

345Robotics has established an ongoing collaboration and partnership with the US non-profit Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (www.recf.org). It has provided substantial in-kind support and training for Cayman teams,  coach training and development in both this year’s (2025-2026 Mix and Match) competition and the previous “Rapid Relay” (2024-2025) Competition.

COACHES/MENTORS

Brandon Ebanks – a Vex Robotics Coach, Educator and Event Partner – has worked with 345Robotics students for the past three years. He was nominated for last year’s Vex Robotics Competition “Inspiration All Star” Award.   Since September 2025, Adam Stoner, a recent graduate of Newcastle University, has trained as a Vex Robotics Coach and Referee with 345Robotics. Kendra Okonski has been involved with the Vex Robotics competition for over a decade as a dedicated volunteer, judge and team mentor.  

TEAM MEMBERS

Middle School (VexIQ Team 34543G) members are Brianna Atkinson (13) and Ella Galatopoulos (14). Elementary (VexIQ Team 34543E) members are Nathan Abbott (10), Omya Arora (12), Darius Campbell (9), Kai Latif (11), Meeraa Muthumukar (12), and Ava Stephano (10).

345Robotics is a registered Cayman Islands non-profit organisation.

About the VexIQ Robotics Competition:

●        More than 17,000 teams from 60 countries playing in over 1700 tournaments

●        Local, regional, national, and world competitions

●        Teamwork Challenge: Two teams working together to maximize their score

●        Robot Skills Challenge: One robot playing alone against the clock – with a controller, and with an autonomous code

https://www.vexrobotics.com/competition 

INSTAGRAM @345Robotics 

www.345robotics.org