Five VEX IQ robots find a new home in Trang

It started with a post on an online forum. A technology teacher at a small school in southern Thailand — a former professional coder — was asking for help: his school didn't have the funding for technology support, and he wanted to get something going for his students. We read the post, and we thought: this is exactly the person to work with.

So on 15 June 2026, the foundation's Prisana Phonsing and team flew south to Trang and took a van out to Baanthonpla School (โรงเรียนบ้านทอนพลา) in Yan Ta Khao district — a small rural primary school of around forty students.

The whole school took part — all thirty-four primary students. The day started on paper, not plastic: worksheets Prisana had written herself, teaching the basic logic that robots run on, played as games on the floor of the school hall.

Then out came the VEX IQ demo kit. Prisana walked the class through the parts — and then handed the box over. The students spent the next hour building a robot with their own hands.

The foundation donated five VEX IQ robot kits for the school to keep, along with books, pens and snacks for the students.

The most important hour, though, may have been the quietest one: sitting down with the school's teachers — including Kru Yai, the technology teacher whose forum post started it all — and going through the software and the free learning materials, where to find them and how to use them, so that the five kits keep teaching long after the van drove away.

Baanthonpla School is exactly what the foundation exists for. If you'd like to help put robots into more classrooms like this one, see our donations page — and if you're a teacher in a school like Kru Yai's, write to us. We read those posts.