They’ve written their script, built the robot, and are ready to compete. Students have spent months programming and workshopped for long hours in the ULab Makerspace. But it is time, and members of the Upper School Robotics team arrive ready to win the Cavalero Cup in Lake Stevens, on Saturday, Feb. 7.
“[The atmosphere] was very competitive and tense. This was the last competition of the year before states, and therefore the last chance to qualify,” sophomore Aidan Tai said. “A lot of the competitions were very fierce as a lot of the teams were desperate to go to State.”
In the 2025-2026 Robotics season, which runs from September to April, teams around the world compete in Push Back, where robots place blocks into plastic tubes to outscore their opponents.
“Our team, 90385C, made it past the first qualification rounds and to the elimination section, but we didn’t do well enough to move on to the state level competition,” Tai said. “One of our other teams, 90385R, did qualify and is going to states.”
Another highlight of the season so far was the Svec High voltage V5RC Challenge, hosted on January 24. It was an opportunity for the club to demonstrate the research, development, and design that were put into their robots.
“We were first, second, third, fourth, and seventh,” Tai said.
A total of 28 teams competed in the tournament, spread across nine schools.
“It’s fun to see our hard work pay off and do well,” senior and club-founder Niam Patel said.
The club is proud of how quickly it has become a big, well-performing team. The club now has about 33 members who show up consistently, according to Patel.
“If you look at our stats right now and you look at the makerspace that’s been created, you would think UPrep Robotics has been going on for a really long time,” Tai said.
However, the current Robotics Club is fairly recent, having been founded only four years ago
by then-eight graders Noah Roth, Benjamin Frischer, and Niam Patel. There
was a robotics team at UPrep before 2022, but the club’s advisor left UPrep for another job.
Given that the club is only four years old, leaders encourage people to sign up even if they aren’t knowledgeable in computer science. One of these new members, senior Molly Hwang, joined the club in 2024.
“A lot of the things in robotics, the skills and knowledge you need to build things and putting together the parts, are completely new to me,” senior Molly Hwang said. “So I’m really just figuring things out as I go.”
It is a fact that robotics is a male-dominated activity. As the Robotics club continues to grow, Hwang has a message for the women and girls of the student body.
“If you’re a girl, do sign up. There’s a great support system here, and you’ll have a lot of fun,” Hwang said.
The next competition is VEX State Championships, scheduled for March 8-9. In addition to other high schools, UPrep will face off with private teams, who have more time to practice than school teams.
“They spend like 40-50 hours a week on robotics, so we’re competing against them,” Patel said. “It’ll be tough, but we’re hopeful.”
As State approaches, members of the club dedicate a lot more time to robotics and try to find a balance between their academics and extracurricular.
“I have a free period that helps with a bunch of homework. And I use my community time effectively by doing homework during that, too,” Patel said.
One skill in particular, documenting (a written record of everything the team does), took members the entire winter break to compile.
“I go to robotics every day, but I also use the weekends and over the break, we document a lot,” ninth-grader Henry Cooke said. “It’s a 300-page notebook.”
Academic Technology Program Manager June Peters affirms that it is students who build the UPrep Robotics program.
“All the actual work, all the thought, all the engineering notebooks that detail what the students are doing. That’s all the students.”
Peters enjoys working with students and maintaining the UPrep Makerspace.
“The most engaged community for the Makerspace right now is Robotics, both Middle School and Upper School,” Peters said.
It was noted that the program helps members improve confidence while learning complex technical skills.
Peters said, “Building confidence for younger studen
ts so that they can do anything by learning new skills in Robotics is really powerful.”
