Glendale Prep Robotics Team Returns to Worlds Competition

Scholars from the Glendale Prep robotics team, the Metal Masters, are heading to the 2026 FIRST Championship, the world’s largest K-12 robotics event and often referred to as the Worlds Competition, for the second year in a row after winning their second state title at the AIA State Robotics Championship.

According to senior Lex Bodzin, they are currently ranked 28th in the world. “But our peak was number four in the world.”

“This is a really big accomplishment for us,” shared senior Brennan Fahey, the team’s lead coder. “We were top of the state all year and we managed to sweep by some close rounds in the final two matches of the season to make it to Worlds. We made it to the elimination rounds last year, but we had an early exit. We’re trying to get a little deeper into the playoffs and maybe even win the whole thing.”

“The goal for this year is to build a robot that can launch as many [wiffle] balls as possible into the goal,” explained Bodzin. “We started this year with a couple early prototypes that we quickly ruled out because they weren’t very effective. And then we’ve spent the rest of the season developing our current robot design, which has been way more effective and allowed us to rank really high in the world.” The students have named their robot Hekebolos, which is a Greek name that was used to describe Apollo and means sharpshooter. “We thought it was fitting for this game because we’re trying to shoot sharply.”

Each team member plays a different role. “There’s fundraising, social media, connecting with other teams, building the robot, manufacturing the robot, coding a robot,” shared Bodzin, the lead designer of the group. “I also help with manufacturing and a little bit of coding when I can. There’s a ton of different tasks and so while each person may have something they specialize in, we try to all collaborate and work together. That way we can solve all the problems quicker.”

These results came from months of hard work and innovation from the students. Brian Roper, Glendale Prep’s robotics coach and physics teacher, says that he mainly steps in to help when needed, while the students lead the team themselves.

The FIRST Championship will again take place in Houston, Texas this year and the students are up for the challenge. “There’s over 300 teams that are coming to compete,” said Bodzin. “So, it’s going to be split into four divisions with a smaller amount of teams in each. And each division is run as basically its own separate competition. We’ll get 10 qualification matches where we try to complete as many objectives as possible to get ranking points. So, scoring a certain amount of balls, but also matching a certain amount of patterns and also parking in certain places. And then once we finish all of our 10 matches and our ranking points are added up, we’ll get ranked and then we’ll hopefully make it to the playoffs. And if we win our division, then we can advance to the grand finals and try to win the whole thing.”

With the guidance and support of Coach Roper, these students are ready to show their competitors what they are made of. Join us in congratulating this scrappy team from Glendale Prep for their outstanding achievements thus far that have brought them to the world stage, where they will undoubtable bring Truth, Goodness, and Beauty to the world of robotics.

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