Brownell Talbot robotics team wins world championship

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - A Nebraska high school robotics team won the most prestigious title in the world after spending a year building and perfecting their robot.

Brownell Talbot’s high school robotics team, called 1028A, qualified for the VEX Robotics World Championship in St. Louis in April. Out of 7,000 high school teams globally, around 900 made the cut for the competition.

The championship is a series of matches over four days, with robots built by students in more than 40 different countries.

“It’s kind of like science fair meets a sport,” said Carrie Rise, head robotics coach and math teacher at Brownell Talbot.

Building the perfect bot

The group of high schoolers meets nearly every day after class.

“We’ve worked an estimated 7,000 hours combined as a team this year,” said Cillian Rochling, a senior on the robotics team.

Rise coaches the team but said the students create the robot on their own.

“They come up with solutions to specific problems based on their robot design that I couldn’t teach. They figure that all out themselves,” Rise said.

The competition tests not only engineering skills but also communication, planning and teamwork.

“The students talk about the journey of their robot, what iteration they’re on, what type of robot it is,” Rise said. “Then there’s also a two versus two. So, it’s a literal two robots versus two other robots.”

Documenting the process

While some students build and drive the robot, others are responsible for keeping records of the team’s progress.

“Every single iteration that they have of the robot, we have to document every mechanism that they build,” said Angel Bhandari, a senior on the robotics team.

Bhandari’s role was to meticulously document the process of developing their robot, then present it to the judges at the world championship. She said it greatly improved her writing and communication skills.

“Making sure I know what to write and how to explain things to someone who might not be familiar with it, because some of the local judges aren’t like in robotics or in engineering, so writing it in a manner where they can understand it,” Bhandari said.

Winning the world title

After six years on the team, Rochling helped guide them through win after win at worlds down to the final match. They partnered with 10B Exothermic Burnout of Washington state, the division’s second seed, to form an alliance for the finals.

“Seeing the crowd maybe 20 feet away from me and the bleachers are filled with people, it was a lot of pressure,” Rochling said.

The students handled that pressure like champs and won, finishing the event with a 23-0 record.

“When the score came up, then you know everybody just jumped up and was very excited and, and as was I. It was very fulfilling, fun, relief,” Rise said.

“Being able to not only be there and experience that, which is a huge feat in itself, but actually win it and take it match by match and win the whole thing, that was so cool,” Rochling said.

Rochling said the experience brought him memories and friendships to last a lifetime.

“I don’t regret a single second I’ve spent working on the robot – the countless hours, the midnight shifts on the weekends – I don’t regret a single moment of it. It was absolutely amazing,” Rochling said.

Preparing for their future

Both Bhandari and Rochling said their roles on the robotics team will directly translate to their majors in college and eventually their careers.

After graduation, Bhandari plans to study international business and finance at Fordham University in New York. Rochling is majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“The soft skills of being on a team I think are huge. Their communication skills are fabulous. These students talk to adults on a very level playing field,” Rise said.

Rise said since she started the program in 2006, when her son was a student and one of the first team members, the robotics program has grown substantially at Brownell Talbot.

“For our student body, I would say our participation in robotics is extremely strong,” Rise said. “We have five middle school teams and five high school teams and the lab is full every day after school.”

She added that interest in the extracurricular has skyrocketed at many schools across the state.

“We’re in a kind of a hotbed of robotics. Nebraska has really some great teams,” Rise said.