Students' success at global robotics competition

Two students, who spent more than 1,000 hours designing and building a robot to compete in the World Championships in the United States, have been crowned the best in the UK.

Bristol sixth form students, Adil and Kacper, finished sixth overall in the global robotics competition against thousands of students from more than 50 countries.

They were the only state school team in the UK to qualify for the contest - building a robot to complete a series of tasks, including picking up and moving objects around an arena as quickly as possible.

Adil said: "The biggest challenge was to make sure the mechanisms were very fast."

Adil from Bristol has always been interested in machines and robotics, starting with Lego before moving on to more complex builds.

They started building their 'Empire' robot in November 2025, "which meant we were six months behind other teams," he explained.

The team put in more than 1,000 hours work, using every break time, free period and weekend to finish the robot. They also managed to secure £20,000 in funding to complete the project.

"In just four months, we won nine regional competitions around the UK and qualified to represent the UK at the World Championship," said Adil.

At the VEX Robotics World Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, students design, build, and program their own robots to play a unique game-based engineering challenge.

The Bristol duo won the award for the most consistent and durable robot.

The Bristol pair designed the robot using computer aided-design, known as CAD.

The programme makes it "easier to measure out the dimensions and make sure the robot would work before even building it," they explained.

"We just keep testing it until it's perfect," said Adil.

"Adil and Casper are amazing students, they've shown tremendous determination and resilience" said head of sixth form, Rob Shaw.

"They are a real inspiration for everyone in our school community," he added.

The pair hope to share their experience by mentoring younger students to keep the project going next year.

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