A student robotics team from San Luis Obispo High School finished No. 15 at a recent world championship competition in Dallas.
Three students and a coach from San Luis Obispo High School Robotics Team competed against teams from all over the world at the VEX Robotics World Championships — marketed as the largest robotics competition in the world.
Students Joseph Lipper, Christopher Kaml, Hunter Dorf and their coach Steven Crow won eight of their 10 qualification matches across the first two days of competition on April 26 and 27.
"I was driving during the world championship and we beat one of the best teams in the world [that] no one expected us to beat," SLOHS robotics student Joseph Lipper said. "So we performed really well in that match. I'm really excited."
That earned them a No. 14 seed — among roughly 100 teams in their division — heading into the elimination matches between the top 32 teams. The team, called "SLO-Botics," competed in the "Math Division."
A loss in the second round of elimination matches knocked them out of the competition, but not before earning them a No. 15 finish among high school robotics teams worldwide in the Math Division.
"I was really happy because we qualified for world championships when I was driving and I'm really happy that I got us there," robotics team member Christopher Kaml said to KSBY. "That was awesome."
They finished with an 8-2 record overall.
"I think it's just really cool how we made it to worlds. I think robotics is an awesome experience," teammate Hunter Dorf said. "The entire journey to worlds was pretty awesome."
The team advanced to the Robotics World Championships after finishing in 2nd place at the Region 3 State Championships at Cal Poly in early March.
