Teams of students line up around the stadium, anticipating the countdown to start their match with their alliance group. From Apr. 21-24 2026, Texas High School’s ‘Overworked and Underpaid’ robotics team participated in the VEX Robotics World Championships in St. Louis, Mo. The team consists of senior Brayden Ahrens, junior Theophilus Francis and sophomores Colin Pritchett, Noah Pritchett, Nirav Neupane and John Sipes. The team receives their motivation and encouragement from robotics teacher Mark Ahrens.
With over 30 countries participating in the competition, the world of robotics proves to be widely appreciated internationally.
“I think one of the main things is [we] get to meet a lot of different people from different countries, like Japan, China, the United Kingdom, New Zealand [and] a whole bunch of countries,” Neupane said. “Even if [we] don’t speak the same language, [we] still get to make a connection [because] there [are] certain things in robot design that are the same.”
With the goal of earning the most points by driving their robots to victory, thousands of students work to move up on the scoreboard and beat personal records.
“We ended up being five and seven, and so that was honestly a really good record for us, because last year we won like two matches,” N. Pritchett said. “But obviously it’s a world competition with the top 900 teams in the world, so it was really gratifying and pleasing to go and do that well.”
Learning to create, problem-solve and communicate proves to be the main aspects of working on a robotics team.
“Robotics is like building a house,” main builder Sipes said. “You need multiple people, all with their own skills, to work together as a team to create the best product.”
Besides the students, Mark Ahrens and the family members of the team traveled to St. Louis.
“Mr. Ahrens has always been a huge motivator for me. He taught me to think outside the box and also helped me see the obvious solutions that I sometimes overlooked,” Francis said. “He has helped the Texas High robotics team reach its potential, and I’m very thankful for what he does for us all.”
The competition served as the culmination of a variety of cultures, techniques and designs.
“[The students] have [had] an opportunity to learn about new cultures, engage in understanding how these teams work and design as well as overcome language barriers in order to strategize for a match,” Ahrens said. “I don’t think students understand how these opportunities were never available to most of their teachers when we were growing up.”
After experiencing this worldwide competition, the students come out with a new perspective on doing robotics.
“I think the main thing to take away was just the experience and the knowledge for next year because we know more about how the strategy works,” Neupane said. “We just learned a lot of things we can improve for the next year as well.”
