Robo Rumble returns to the Hub City, featuring local, regional high school robotics teams

The fourth annual Toyota Tennessee Hub City Robo Rumble is set for Saturday, Oct. 3 at Jackson State Community College (JSCC). This exciting event is free and open to the public.  It is scheduled for 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. with the competition portion taking place from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The VEX Robotics-sanctioned event is the flagship VEX competition for the Hub City, with 36-teams traveling from across the state and region to compete in the skills-based robotics tournament. Toyota Tennessee is serving as the title sponsor.

Teams will compete in a series of challenges, pushing their student-designed robots to their coding and mechanical limits. Throughout the tournament, teams will play the VEX Robotics Override game on a 12x12 field. This game will test their ability to work together as an engineering team, overcoming design, programming, and building obstacles all while trying to develop a winning game strategy. Each team is also assessed on the quality and durability of their construction, ingenuity, and more, allowing teams to also earn Judged Awards in categories outside of the overall winner. The winners of this tournament will advance to the Tennessee State Championship held at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville in March 2027.

“The demand for STEM opportunities in our student population here in Jackson never ceases to amaze me,” said KaBao McCarver, event organizer with Jackson Area Robotics. “Our youth seem to intuitively know that robotics and drone education are the path to a prosperous future for them here in Tennessee. We love hosting teams from Chattanooga, Brentwood, White Pine, and Collierville. We want the state to know that Jackson is a thriving home to technical and robotics education and are so grateful for partners like Jackson State and Toyota TN who understand the value of what we are doing at Jackson Area Robotics.”

Jackson Area Robotics (JAR) is a local Robotics Club comprised of high school students from across West Tennessee. The Hub City Robo Rumble, established in 2023, has grown into the premier kickoff event of the VEX Robotics season in the state of Tennessee. The VEX Robotics Competition is an international robotics game that attracts over 30,000 teams globally.

Thanks to the great efforts of the Jackson Madison County School System's Innovation team, Jackson will have close to 80 teams this season. The school system sent their first team to the World Championship in St. Louis, MO last season and Coach Dustin Wallace from Madison Academic intends to do the same this season in Las Vegas, NV. 

Sponsors for this year’s event include Toyota Tennessee as the title sponsor of the event, with supporting sponsors including, Tennessee Valley Robotics, JSCC Advanced Maintenance Technician Co-op, Toyota Boshoku Tennessee (TBDN), The Greater Jackson Chamber, Gerdau, Tennalum, Marco’s Pizza, and Twice the Ice.