Robotics club member Aeden Gasser-Brennan ’19 won the 2017 California State VRC High School Championship in Pomona on March 11 with team member Ben Adelstein from Grover Cleveland High School.

The team also received the Amaze Award, and they will advance to the World Championship in Louisville, Kentucky April 19-25 with their robot, Quantum Flux.

“The day started rough, but we were able to catch back up and eventually win the entire tournament,” Gasser-Brennan said. “It was so exciting and fulfilling to win the tournament, and it was great to know the work paid off.”

This year’s “Starstruck” competition included two teams of two robots divided by a fence with stars and cubes on both sides. The allied teams gained points by picking up and throwing the stars and boxes to the other side of the fence.

Team 62, consisting of Cameron Schiller ’18, Jonathan Damico ’18 and Daniel Lesh ’18 with the robot Kanalgasabathys, will also be attending the World Championships as a tournament finalist from the March 11 competition.

The robotics team has been building its robots since the end of April and competing in smaller-scaled competitions every month in preparation for the state and upcoming world championships, Schiller said.

“We are super excited,” Schiller said. “All of our work during the past year paid off at States, and we plan on preparing harder than we ever have before for Worlds.”