Purdue SIGBots robotics team wins national competition in Dallas

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University’s robotics team, Purdue SIGBots, have vied for the VEX Robotics World Championship title for the last few years, but they were always stopped by divisional rivals from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s team, WiscoBots.

That all changed this year.

The Purdue SIGBots defeated their longstanding rivals at the divisional level, and then they went on to compete for the world title in Dallas, Texas, ultimately sweeping their competition, California Polytechnic State University’s Cal Poly Gear Slingers.

“This is the end goal for many of those on our team, and we finally got it,” said Dominic Holifield, a SIGBots team member and Purdue University graduate in mechanical engineering.

“Last year we were finalists in our division, and the year before that, we also had a team that was world finalists. We’ve been really close these past few years, but we finally got it this year.”

This year’s achievement was built on the back of members who had years of experience building robots for the VEX Robotic competition as well as the team’s experience earning first place in the “skills” competition at the 2022 VEX Robotics World Championship.