On Saturday, Feb. 14, Powell Robotics Team 6437, the Mad Hatters, won the Wyoming First Tech Challenge 2026 state championship and Inspire Award. 6437 will be moving up to the FTC World Championship in Houston, Texas, along with Powell Team 3189, Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly, and representing Wyoming in front of teams gathering from around the globe. 

In qualification rounds, Team 6437 placed first in the rankings, with 3189 close behind them in second place. During alliance selection, 6437 chose 3189 as their alliance partner. In the final alliance match, 6437 delivered a blow to the competition with a total of 99 points against Jackson Hole teams JV Broncs and RoboBroncs at 62. Subsequently, after 6437 won both the competition and Inspire award, they ended up with a total of 136 points, their alliance partners 3189, had the second total amount of points, as well as 3rd place Inspire award, so they earned the opportunity to compete in the 2026 Worlds FTC Championship.

Brighton Streeter, team captain of 6437, was determined to use his senior year to take full advantage of his knowledge of robotics. Even if he didn’t feel guaranteed, he took the chance and gave this year his hardest.

“I wouldn’t say I was confident, I was definitely hopeful,” Streeter said. “It felt like this year’s my last opportunity to go to state and to win. So I was very hopeful that I would be able to do the work and go to the competition and come out on top.”

The Inspire award is given to the team that has put the most effort into reaching out into their community to support and encourage FTC. Furthermore, you must be nominated for a robot award and for a portfolio award. Streeter emphasized his team’s advances into elementary school robotics and their curiosity of functionality among teams globally. 

“We spent a lot of time going to the elementary school, and we started this little program where we use these marshmallows and toothpicks to build a little robot while the kids filled out a worksheet,” Streeter said. “We also spent time reaching out to other teams across the world and talking to them and how their competitions look in different countries and in different states.”

Team 3189 was close behind 6437 in qualifications, but encountered some unexpected challenges. Junior Zachary Peterson explains that their robot encountered a disconnecting issue that, despite their best efforts to resolve, inevitably allowed 6437 to pull ahead.

“Most of us were able to stay after and work every day to build our robot to do the best it could,” Peterson said. “One thing we didn’t really see was that [our] robot had a really big disconnecting issue, and we never knew that until we went to state and encountered it.”

During state robotics, many strategies emerged from different teams looking to score a few extra points. Junior Elizabeth Halberstadt, a member of Team 10541, the Duckasaurus Rex, expands on their team’s defense strategy at state despite frequent setbacks.

“I feel like our strong point was, like, judging and our notebook,” Halberstadt said. “We had almost full points and almost exemplary. That was definitely where we excelled the best. And we also did, like, really good at defense. There was this one match where we were against 6437, and we were able to just push their robot around the mat.”

Not every team could be number one, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still achieve incredible feats. Team captain of Team 3188 Squiggle Splat Bang, senior Mason Coombs, expanded on their outreach and the robots performance in the matches.

“We had over 600 hours of outreach put through our nonprofit SSB robotics, with around currently seven printers given away,”  Coombs said. “Our notebook also scored a 100 for the judging, and our robot worked surprisingly well. We were pretty much always up there. We were ranked in sixth until we had to go against the fourth and fifth Alliance captains, where we eventually lost because our alliance partner did not score any points.”

3189 and 6437 weren’t the only teams that walked away with more than they came with. Talon Grau, a sophomore from Team 10731, claims to have walked away with a fresh take on robotics. 

“Going to state robotics really made me realize how achievable it is,” Grau said. “For the longest time I saw it as this, like, impossible pillar that only the best robots really got to go and do well in.”

Coach Joel Hayano sees the potential of Powell teams being closely related to a passion for competition and robotics. Yet he states that other teams are becoming increasingly serious about robotics, and Powell’s multi-year victory streak may be challenged in coming years.

“[I think ]part of it is that for us, it’s a club and it’s fun, but I think we have a big group of students that like to compete and win State where I don’t think the other teams are that concerned about it,” Mr. Hayano said. “All the teams are starting to get better and getting closer to us. So I think the days where we just dominate all the time are probably going to be over soon.”

Awards:

Team 3188 (Squiggle Splat Bang)- Design Award, 6th Place Alliance First Pick

Team 3189 (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD))- Winning Alliance First Pick, 3rd Place Inspire Award

Team 6437 (Mad Hatters)- Inspire Award, Winning Alliance Captain

Team 10541 (Duckasaurus Rex Robotics)- Sustain Award

Team 10731 (Radioactive)- 6th Place Alliance Captain