KANSAS CITY, Kan. — The Wyandotte High School robotics team is undersized and underfunded compared to their peers, but that didn’t stop them from qualifying for a prestigious worldwide competition next week in Houston.
“A lot of people overlook us,” Alonso Escamilla, a senior on Wyandotte’s team, said. “They see us as your stereotypical Wyandotte kid. We're known as something like not very well behaved or we're bad kids who don't know anything. When, in reality, it's not true.”
Wyandotte's squad, Team WRATH, and the robot they built, Morris, proved that by becoming one of fewer than 600 teams from 16 countries worldwide to qualify for FIRST Championship Robotics Competition, which takes place April 16-19 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.
“I saw a lot of the kids grow over the season, change and stand up to the challenge and try to do their best in every aspect that they could,” Wyandotte High School Robotics Coach Oscar Campos-Soto said.
The team was formed in 2006, but this is the first time Wyandotte has qualified for the FIRST World Championships in 20 seasons of competition.
“We're all really proud of it, especially how far we've come since my freshman year,” Wyandotte robotics senior Cristian Martinez said.
Team 1847, which is Wyandotte’s code for FIRST competitions, didn’t always believe it would be possible to reach such heights.
“I didn't actually,” Escamilla said. “I had the hopes, and I had the dreams. It was there, but throughout all the years, we’ve had our shortcomings. This year, I felt really confident.”
Many of the student have been on the robotics team for four years, so they planned more during the offseason and leveraged their experience to improve dramatically this season.
“To me, it means that, even in this community, we have people that can grow and become better,” Campos-Soto said. “They have a good future ahead of them.”
That’s also not something Wyandotte’s robotics team could always plainly see.
“Before this, I didn't think that I would do much in life — just be in an average job,” Martinez said. “But after this, realizing how far we can all come, it's opened my eyes to a lot.”
Martinez is Morris’ driver, much like Campos-Soto was the team driver more than a decade ago when he was on the Wyandotte robotics team. Now, he’s a software engineer with a passion for giving back to his alma mater.
“There's a lot of kids that want to do great; they want to do big things,” Escamilla said. “They want to be someone, and they want to make a difference in our community — not only our community, but also in the world.”
Team WRATH has created a legacy.
“We hope that anyone else that comes after us can also come this far,” Martinez said.
Campos-Soto added, “I've dreamed of this.”
In total, 598 teams qualified for the FIRST Championship Robotics Competition from 44 states and 15 foreign countries — Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, the Dominican Republic, France, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland and Turkey.
That list includes 11 from the Kansas City region — Panther Robotics from Paola High School (Team 1108), the Ravonics Revolution from Olathe Northwest (1710), The Cyborgs from Metro Homeschool Robotics and the Lutheran High School of Kansas City (1825), WRATH from Wyandotte (1847), Trobots from Park Hill (5013), Team Driven from Lee’s Summit (1730), Team Titanium from Lee’s Summit West (1986), Broncobots from Lee’s Summit North (1987), Team SCREAM from Smith-Cotton in Sedalia (4522), CTC Inspire from Fort Osage (5801) and Stealth Panther Robotics from Knob Noster (6424).
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KSHB 41 reporter Tod Palmer covers sports business and eastern Jackson County. Share your story idea with Tod.
