Every year, the international non-profit For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology hosts youth robotics competitions for many age levels. Iowan teams in the seventh-12th grade competition, the FIRST Tech Challenge, competed in various tournaments to qualify for the state championships hosted in the Xtream Arena from Feb. 27-28. Out of the 72 teams that qualified to the championship, most of them will end their season here, but six of them will be going to the world championship in Houston, Texas.
With every season, the game and objectives change, with this season being two alliances of two teams each gathering purple and green Wiffle balls called artifacts and shooting them into a goal, competing to outscore the other alliance. From the season kickoff on Sept. 6 to the state championship, teams had nearly six months to build, program, test and refine their robots to complete that main objective, compete in tournaments and qualify for the championship.
The championship was split into the Black Division and Gold Division, with 36 teams in each division. In the divisions, teams first played matches in a qualification stage, where the two alliances were semi-randomly selected. Teams competed to win matches and gain ranking points, with the top teams in the division then selecting their alliance partners in a draft for the playoff stage.
The No. 1 seed alliance of Team 6093 Deviation From The Norm and Team 25957 Quantum Ignitors won the Black Division playoffs, and the No. 2 seed alliance of Team 10435 Circuit Breakers and Team 26744 Lion Robotics Black won the Gold Division. The two alliances competed against each other in a best of three to determine the overall winner of the championship, with the Gold Division alliance taking the trophy.
Although West High’s own team, 8696 Trobotix, did not qualify for the state championship, Tada Goto ’26 and Jennifer Zeng ’26 still participated as event volunteers, with Goto as an event photographer and Zeng as field reset crew. Trobotix was eliminated from the competition at the Machu Picchu League Tournament on Feb. 14, held at West High.
