Akron Public Schools robotics teams heading to worlds

AKRON, Ohio — Several robotics teams from northeast Ohio, including six teams from Akron Public Schools, are heading to the world championship competition in Dallas, Texas.

Kyle Long, a senior at Firestone High School, and his team have been working hard all year to prepare for the 2024 VEX Robotics World Championship.

“I’m going into it more with the mindset of I’m going to win,” Long said.

Along with the thrill of winning competitions, Long, who joined the robotics club as a sophomore, said he loves this club because his teammates have become his chosen family.

“This really does make it so much easier for us, the stressors of high school and going into college. This really is important for all of us,” Long said. “I think most of us would do just about anything to hold on to it.”

Teams have to qualify for the chance to compete at the world championship and this year, four teams from Firestone are going.

Robotics coach, Andrew Wallen, said it took a lot of hard work and dedication to get to this elite competition.

“We go usually to about 15 regional competitions a year. It’s a very long season,” Wallen explained. “We start going to competitions late October and we usually end early February.”

The coach added that aside from the opportunity to compete in Dallas for worlds, the robotics club provides students with real-life skills.

“Not only is there the part of ‘hey, we have to build our robot and compete with other people,’ and learning how to compete is really important, but they also then at each competition they go to. They have judges and the judges come around and interview each team,” he explained. “They also have to turn in an engineering notebook and the judges look at the engineering notebooks and grade them on that and then they can win awards based off of that as well.”

The Robotics World Championship is a multiple day event and occurs at the end of April.