The nascent Vex Robotics program at Holbrook High School is excelling. During the 2014-15 school year, participants have received the sportsmanship awards at the Ray High School Qualifying Event and the EVIT Expo Qualifying Event, and recently they won an excellence award at the Granite Mountain Qualifying Event in Prescott. The excellence award earned the team an invitation to the state tournament on Feb. 28 and to the U.S. Open Vex Tournament in Council Bluff, Iowa, which will be held April 7-9. They were judged the best overall team at Prescott as a result of their quality interaction with the judges and other teams, and by their constructive efforts in engineering an autonomous mode that allowed their robot to score independently eight out of 11 times. The team is made up of seniors Joseph Holl (leader and main programmer), James Sumpter (driver) and Bryant Martin (chief builder); juniors Jedde Bowman (autonomous programmer), David Alejandro (builder), David Hung and Larsen Yazzie; and sophomores Rion Stimmel and Ed Heward. For more information on this and other STEM programs at HHS, go online to http://www.holbrook.k12.az.us/Schools/HHS/Information/stem.html.