2026 Indianna Robotics Invitational
July 2026
We traveled all the way to Indianapolis for the Indiana Robotics Invitational! Our team is excited to compete at our first off-season competition since the FIRST Robotics Championship in late April and early May. This year, we decided not to rebuild a whole new robot, but to make minor adjustments to our on-season one. We refined the code, shooter, and indexing to optimize BPS. Our students were excited to play at a highly competitive tournament and fight for their spot in the top! We took this competition as an opportunity to take a road trip across the Midwest! We visited states like Kentucky and Tennessee, stopping along the way to visit cities and national parks. Driving over 1000 miles, our team had an amazing time touring different places and taking pictures to document our trip.
QUALIFICATION MATCHES
After all the testing we did the day before, we are confident that our robot is ready to go into qualification matches! Our robot was on fire, scoring more accurately than ever and shooting the fuel rapidly. Each match was a close call. You could feel the tension in the air, never knowing which direction the round was going and who would leave the field victorious. Our most nail-biting match this entire season was match 38. After an intense round, everyone in the building was holding their breath as the score was announced: we lost by a single point! We ended Qualifications ranked 7th, with a record of 6-3-0 (win-loss-tie). Let's move on to Alliance Selection!
PLAY-OFF MATCHES
Our students had the honor of meeting and talking with many teams and people from around the world. At some points, they had to overcome some language barriers, like with a Mandarin-speaking team, but they overcame them through the shared love of VEX and won their match while making new friends along the way!We went into Alliance Selection and ended it as the Captain of Alliance 6. We asked team 1833, Team BEAN, to join our alliance, and they accepted! Alongside them, we invited 9032, RoboWhales, and 1710, The Ravonics Revolution. There were so many strong alliances at that competition, but we were sure that ours was one to be feared as well!
PRACTICE MATCHES
The day of the tournament had begun, and we started by setting up our pit. We assembled the robot, tested it, and made all the tweaks necessary to make sure it runs at its best.
ALLIANCE SELECTIONS
Our first Play-off match was match 4, where we went against the impressive alliance 3 for the battle to stay in the upper bracket. After a heated match, we were unfortunately knocked down into the lower bracket with a score of 779-634, but our hopes were still high! We were determined to make every point count and battle for the win. We fought through our next 3 matches, each being close calls and suspenseful; multiple teams in our alliance had to make rapid repairs. Thankfully, we could be dynamic because of the 4-team alliances at IRI, and we made it to the semifinals to play against the first seed alliance! However, after many rounds of our intake constantly breaking and us fixing it, it couldn’t hold on any longer. In this match, our intake broke at the beginning, costing us many, many points and the match. While it is rare for alliance #6 to make it to 3rd place, it is a testament to how well our alliance worked and the strength of our teams.
Check out our other VEX Competitions!
LOOKING AHEAD
It was an honor to compete at the Indiana Robotics Invitational for the first time since 2018. Although we couldn’t bring home another blue banner, we brought home something priceless: memories. As this is some of our seniors' last competition, we give them a final farewell and wish them luck wherever the future takes them. Imua Waialua!