The 12th Tencent Youth Cup Vex Asia-Pacific Robotics Championship ended in Macao on Dec 3. The competition, which lasted for four days, saw 450 teams and more than 2,000 individuals participate.

Zeng Qinglong, the president of the Asian Robot Union China region; Dr. Zhengyu, expert researcher for Tencent Robotics X; and Fang Liqun, the chairman of Macao Zhonglv, attended the closing ceremony. They also presented awards to the winning teams: Hefei No 45 Middle School, IFT robot, Fujian Normal University, Shanghai Huangpu Teenagers Science & Technology Activity Center, South China Agriculture University, the Experimental High School Attached to the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, the Middle School Affiliated to Beijing Jiaotong University, and Cooper Robot.

The winning teams will have the chance to go straight to the Vex World Robotics Championship held in the United States in April 2019.

The Asia-Pacific Robotics Championship, one of the most renowned competitions in the field for teenagers, was first organized and held in 2007, continuing every year since then. Hundreds of teams from the region take part annually, with the 12th Tencent Youth Cup Vex Asia-Pacific Robotics Championship standing out as the biggest event in terms of the number of participants. It attracts competitors from countries including China, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia and Kazakhstan.

The Vex Asia-Pacific Robotics Championship showed its value to participants, as the competition required rich imagination and requested competitors to finish missions within the allotted time. It tested wisdom in designing strategy and cultivated the ability to collaborate, sparking teenagers’ interest in science.

Tencent, as one of the sponsors of the competition, spared no efforts to advertise the event. It provided eight livestreams to promote the competition every day, and also created a special column and videos, attracting more people who care about STEM education to pay attention to this championship.

Lihang, the manager of the marketing department and public relations department and vice-president of the Commission on Youth Development Commission for Tencent, said that Tencent always focuses on basic science, advanced discovery in science and technology, and science education for adolescents. Tencent would devote more resources to make science popular among young people. Moreover they will make contributions to build up teenagers’ interest, creating a solid foundation for scientific discovery.

Liuming, the vice-president for Tencent Game, said that Tencent Game seeks to cooperate with the Vex World Robotics Championship and find the connection between games and science, training teenagers to learn science and technology. In the future they will work on studying the connection between teenagers and robots and strengthening robotic cultural exchanges in order to promote positive results for teenagers in science and technology. Recently, the Tencent functional game research team came out with some games aiming to popularize scientific knowledge and boost public interest in science and technology.