For the first time, a Mexican and Latin American team has reached the division final of the FIRST Robotics World championship.
Celebrated by teams from around the world, LamBot from PrepaTec San Luis Potosí became the first Mexican and Latin American team to advance to the finals of its division in the FIRST Robotics Competition.
Although Lambot didn’t win in the end, they took home the Champions Division Award and the Engineering Inspiration Award, which automatically qualifies them for the 2025 championship, sponsored by NASA.
10 teams from Tec de Monterrey competed in the championship held in Houston, Texas, four of which won prizes.
- The Engineering Inspiration Award went to Roult, from PrepaTec Laguna.
- The Quality Award went to Cyberius, from PrepaTec Santa Catarina.
- The Judges Award went to Overture, from PrepaTec Cumbres.
This year’s edition of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) was held from 17 to 20 April in Houston, Texas.
It was attended by 1,000 students in 600 teams from 15 countries around the world, including 10 teams from PrepaTec.
“This participation represents a great opportunity to gain experience and shows that we can form teams of talented men and women whose strengths can encourage and inspire interest in science and technology,” said Crisantos Martínez, Dean of PrepaTec.
A historic moment: Mexican team reaches the final
During the four days of the competition, the PrepaTec San Luis Potosí team LamBot stood out with excellent scores, placing them third in the world rankings.
It was captain of the Newton division and created alliance number two with:
- Jack in the Bot from Mill Creek, Washington, USA
- The Commodores from Albany, Georgia, USA
- Raider Robotics from London, Ontario, Canada
This alliance advanced to the finals of their division and lost in round two of three with 168 to 117 points.
With tears of emotion after their historic performance in the competition, teams from all over the world cheered them on as they made their way to the repair area to collect their tools, chanting: “Mexico, Mexico, Mexico!”
“They’ve made Mexico and Latin America proud; we’ve never made it this far before and they did it, they competed against the best teams in the world and reached the finals. That’s historic,” said Pepe Santillan of the Cyberius team from PrepaTec Santa Catarina.
After giving his best on the court, the finalist team’s driver, Diego Pérez, shared his feelings:
“Sadly, we lost, but I’m still very happy to have made it this far in a championship, something no Mexican or Latin American team has ever achieved.”
“It was very important to believe in ourselves to get this far and to learn from our mistakes to improve. Next year will be better, as we’ve already done it once,” said Sofia Araujo of the LamBot team.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Mexican and international teams cheered them on and congratulated them for their great performance in the world championship.
The judges announced that the team had won the Champions Division Award and the Engineering Inspiration Award, automatically qualifying them for the 2025 championship.
What’s more, teams Botbusters (PrepaTec Monterrey) and Overture (Cumbres) were part of the same alliance and made it to the Curie Division Semi-Final.
Tec de Monterrey sends 10 teams to the World Championship
Tec de Monterrey has participated in these competitions since 2010 at national and international levels and has managed to qualify for all the world championships and achieve important recognition.
“The teams we have in Mexico are getting stronger and that shows Mexico’s growth in robotics and the Tec as a hotbed of talent,” said Francisco Guerra, national robotics leader at PrepaTec.
He added that this year’s robots are faster, tougher, and capable of scoring points autonomously.
These are the teams that competed in the 2024 World Championship:
- Overture from PrepaTec Cumbres
- ROULT - Peñoles from PrepaTec Laguna
- BULUK from PrepaTec State of Mexico Campus
- VOLTEC from PrepaTec Eugenio Garza Lagüera
- Daedalus from PrepaTec Guadalajara
- TecDroid from PrepaTec Querétaro
- Botbusters from PrepaTec Eugenio Garza Sada
- ABTOMAT from PrepaTec León
- LamBot from PrepaTec San Luis Potosi
- Cyberius from PrepaTec Santa Catarina
10 teams from Tec de Monterrey competed in the world championship in Houston, Texas, with four of them winning prizes.
Engineering Inspiration: promoting engineering and impacting their school and community. (Roult from PrepaTec Laguna and LamBot from PrepaTec San Luis Potosí)
Judges Award: Outstanding and participating in various categories of the awards. (Cyberius from PrepaTec Santa Catarina).
Quality Award: rewards the robustness of the robot in terms of design and construction. Shows quality in all its structures (Cyberius from PrepaTec Santa Catarina).
“The teams we have in Mexico are getting stronger and that shows Mexico’s growth in robotics and the Tec as a hotbed of talent.” - Francisco Guerra
The winning alliance of this year’s FIRST Robotics competition included four teams: Orbit from Binyamina, HaZafon, Israel; Scream from Sedalia, Missouri, USA; Team 8-Bit from Phoenix, Arizona, USA; and RoboLancers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Mexico’s Kamila Ortega Sandoval from DEVOLT at Prepa Tecmilenio (Chihuahua) won one of the 10 Dean’s List Awards, which recognize outstanding student leaders whose passion and effectiveness in achieving the ideals of FIRST are exemplary.
About the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship
FIRST Robotics Competition (for ages 14-18) combines the excitement of sport with the rigor of science and technology. Working with adult mentors, the students design, build, and program their robots to meet the challenge of the competition.
In the 2024 games, CRESCENDO, teams used their STEM skills and creative power to turn up the volume in an action-packed game that included autonomous and driver-operated periods.
This is one of the largest robotics tournaments in the world, with 600 teams competing in rotating alliances in one of eight divisions over several rounds to earn ranking points and advance to the playoffs.
The divisions were: Archimedes, Curie, Daly, Galileo, Hopper, Johnson, Milstein, and Newton.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen. It’s a worldwide organization that prepares young people for the future through inclusive, team-based robotics programs.
The event was held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.
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