Building robots and life skills

While this week officially marks the return of National Robotics Week, affectionately known as Robo Week, robotics has already been on full display at the annual Iowa Regional FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) last month.

Held at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, this competition brought together over 50 FRC teams and hundreds of students from across the Midwest and beyond. Teams, ranging in size from five to more than 50 students, have six weeks prior to the competition to design, build and program a robot to play a game that changes each year. For 2026, the challenge included navigating a field with obstacles to maneuver balls and shoot them into a raised bin. Following a series of randomized qualification matches, alliances were formed for the remainder of the competition.

“This is a team sport, it’s not one-on-one, it’s three-on-three, so what can we do to make our alliance better?” said Martin Nemaric, middle school mathematics teacher at Ogden and coach for the Tower Robotics team #9092.

The Tower Robotics team took an outside-the-box approach to this year’s challenge. In a game that scores points by getting balls into the basket, team #9092 developed a robot that cannot shoot. Instead, it features an oversized hopper that can hold several more balls than other robots, making it a sought-after alliance partner for teams with robots that shoot well but may not be able to corral balls as quickly.

“It’s been a great conversation to have with the kids. One student even asked, ‘Do we want to be average and normal or do we want to go out there and do something weird?’” Nemaric said. "It's a team sport, so you find your niche.”

One team found their niche in developing software that utilizes artificial intelligence to scan markers around the game field, helping the robot “see” various game pieces and play the game more efficiently.

“We developed it with a team from California. It’s been an on-and-off project for about two years,” said Cole Berberich, a freshman with the Wildcard Robotics team #4646 out of Polk City. “I work on a lot of automation and things like that to make the driver’s life easier as well as our auto[nomous].”

The FIRST enterprise is composed of three levels from First Lego League (FLL) to First Tech Challenge (FTC) to First Robotics Challenge.

“I just really like how young it starts and how old it goes,” said Aiden Ries, sophomore with the Swartdogs team #525 out of Cedar Falls and FIRST Regional Ambassador. “Every kid plays with Legos. They already know what they are doing, so FLL is a nice way to introduce them to problem-solving and ways to think about things mechanically. When you go up to the next level, it starts to turn more into a competition where you are building a functioning robot.

FTC is a current program offering on the STEM Scale-Up Program menu. Awards are expected to be announced in late April for the 2026-27 school year. Educators will have additional opportunities to apply for the program as it is anticipated to be offered through the 2028-29 school year, supporting both new and veteran schools with materials and additional professional development for coaches.

“Being on an older team, we take pride in our history. We keep our robots from every year, so we need new parts every year,” Aiden said.

Team pride is apparent as you walk the pits during competition. Rows of tents feature flags, mascots and matching t-shirts, all carefully curated by team members specializing in marketing.  

“Everyone does what they want to do, there’s a spot for everyone,” Aiden said. ”Even if you don’t like robots or know how to code, there’s still a lot of things that you can do. We’ve got logistics, awards, outreach, can drives, we do food banks, we do a lot of things.”

Student participants learn technical and life skills including programming, CAD, marketing, business planning, writing, outreach and event planning, building design and public speaking. Iowa now has 30 FRC teams, representing rural, suburban and urban schools.

“It’s more than building robots; these kids are running a small team,” said Jeff Margrett, regional director for FIRST in Iowa and Nebraska.” We’re producing the next wave of engineers. We’re producing the next workforce.”