IDAHO, USA — For the first time, a high school robotics team from Nampa Christian Schools is headed to VEX Robotics national and state competitions.
The six-member team "M.O.N.T.E" qualified for both competitions after the state competition earlier this month. In total, 32 teams from around Idaho competed at state.
Three other NCS teams competed at state as well.
"We won the skills category, which is autonomous and driver separately," sophomore Ryan Gonzales said. "And then we also won in the actual match, which is robots, where we go head-to-head against other schools and other robots and compete against each other."
On Wednesday, Gonzales and the other M.O.N.T.E team members will arrive in Iowa for nationals. They'll compete against 165 other teams starting Thursday. NCS robotics teacher David Reeves said he is extremely proud of his students.
"We have a team that has a perfect combination of students," he said. "Some are mechanical, some are fantastic programmers, some are fantastic at documenting things. It just all came together for them at the state tournament."
During competitions, M.O.N.T.E team members drive their robot with a control. The robot roams around the small arena picking up disks and spitting them out into a "high goal" and a "low goal."
The team with the most points wins, Gonzales said. Nationals will wrap up on Saturday. After they arrive home, M.O.N.T.E will start preparing for worlds in Dallas, Texas, the last week of April.
At one point, M.O.N.T.E was ranked 100 out of about 3,000 teams in the world. Reeves said they're currently ranked about 180.
During worlds, they'll compete against about 800 other teams. Doing well at competitions takes a lot of preparation. He said M.O.N.T.E team members put in "an unbelievable amount of hours."
"They were here after school three to five times a week, they were putting in extra time as well as their class time, weekends ... they were getting myself and our principal to let them into the building to get every minute that they could to work on this robot, which really speaks to their success," Reeves said.
NCS has two different robotics classes, one competitive and one non-competitive. Gonzales said the program gives students interested in STEM an opportunity to learn new skills.
Traveling, having fun, and getting experience for later on in life are just some of the highlights, he said.
While there is always a winner at competitions, Gonzales said he enjoys how competitions bring together like-minded people from different areas of the world.
"You get to meet people that have the same passion as you and the same interest and just get to bond over things that you love like robotics and just get to talk the same language," he said.
People can donate to NCS's robotics program here.
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