The University of Arkansas at Little Rock robotics team won the Design Award in the VEXU Robotics Competition held Dec. 7 at UA Little Rock. 

UA Little Rock robotics team members include Gavin Zintel, Alex Alvarez, Khristina Huff, Jerric Jefferson, William Morrison, and Kevin Davidson.

In the competition, teams are tasked with designing and building a robot to play against other teams in a game-based engineering challenge. This year’s game is called Tower Takeover. The Design Award is granted to the team with the most effective and efficient robot design.

UA Little Rock’s team, called “Just a Prototype,” began competing in 2015. At the time, it was the state’s only university-level robotics team. Arkansas Tech University now has the second. UA Little Rock also competed against teams from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Mexico.

“Arkansas students are competing on robotics teams in high school, so they want to compete at the college level,” said Sandra Leiterman, math specialist in the STEM Education Center and advisor of the robotics team. “They are pushing colleges to have robotics teams.”

“Just a Prototype” will compete next Feb. 22, 2020, in Houston.