Two Katy High School robotics teams have qualified for the VEX World Robotics competition – the Varsity K team and the JV A team, according to a recent Facebook post.

“We are so proud of these amazing students and how far they have come,” says Adam Bukowski, Katy High School engineering instructor. “This program has been carefully crafted by Thea Drake, the head robotics coach. She has continued to shape and mentor this team despite her cancer diagnosis and ongoing treatment. We’re grateful for her leadership and dedication to these students. We know they would not be heading to Worlds if not for her commitment to creating an open environment for bright young minds to flourish.”

These students have fought a long battle to get to where they are. In their freshmen year (2020-21) there were not a lot of options to compete in person because of COVID. In their sophomore and junior years, they worked hard to hone their skills and to learn from failures. This year they have really taken the local competitions by storm, often going undefeated at tournaments, said Katy ISD in a statement to the Katy Times.

“Their dedication is obvious,” the statement said. “They live, sleep, and breathe VEX Robotics. The team has built and rebuilt their robot many times trying to perfect every aspect.”

Every summer, VEX Robotics releases a brand-new game that integrates plastic or foam game pieces to be played by 18-inch robots that are designed, programmed, built and driven by teams of high school students around the world.

Using VEX-approved parts that combine electronics, motors and aluminum or steel parts, the students must study the game thoroughly and decide how to precisely build their robots. Even seemingly small decisions like what type of wheels to use can have huge impacts on how the robot performs.

The game is played on a 12-foot field with 4 robots competing in each match. For the first 15 seconds of every match, the robots must be autonomous and drive themselves. The students preprogrammed the robot using either Robot C or Python to get the best performance out of their sensors and programs. To compete at the highest levels, the teams can qualify in one of five ways: interview, notebook, skills score, programming scores and tournament champion.

“Ever since my Freshman year, my passion has been robotics. As a senior, I hope to leave a legacy that can continue to motivate the teams to keep creating winning robots,” says Harraz Hizam, Katy High School Robotics Club president and 63310K “Nemesis” team captain.

Harraz’s team, alongside fellow Katy HS Team 63310A “Event Horizon” will head to VEX Worlds, held in Dallas, Texas in April 2024.

“This is an incredible honor, but it is also incredibly expensive,” said Regina Roberts Smith in the February Facebook post. “The robotics program does not have even a fraction of the monetary support that many of the high school sports teams do.” She added, “Two teams qualified for this honor a few

years ago, but had to forfeit because they didn’t get the necessary funding to cover the registration and travel. We don’t want that to happen this year!”

If you would like to donate to the team’s GoFundMe and help them pay their way to worlds, you can check it out here: https://gofund.me/e371e0b1.