Bartlett Robotics Club wins state, competes in World Championship

The Bartlett High School Robotics Club and students from the school's Science, Engineering and High Technology Academy won the Illinois Vex Robotics State Championship in Batavia, in March. The win qualified the students to compete at the VEX World Championship in Anaheim in late April.

More than 2,000 elementary, middle and high school robotics teams competed including 430 high school teams from 23 countries including Spain, Hong Kong, China, Saudi Arabia, and India to name a few. Bartlett High School students who competed at the World Championship include Noah Lee, Brandon Pepa, Christopher Szul, Ron Mikulecky, Matt Groboske, Kyle Calvert, Nathan Sparacino, Kartikey Desai, Kevin Worytko and Eric Mitchell.

"The most valuable experience for our students at the World Championship was the opportunity to see what the best teams from across the world are doing to prepare for a global economy," said Gary Cotie, Master Project Lead the Way teacher at Bartlett High School. "Overall, our students had an extremely successful year, winning two state competitions and competing in the world championship."

Earlier this year, Bartlett High School's Robotics Club won the Vex Robotics tournament at Technology Day held at Illinois State University. At the state conference for Technology Student Association (TSA), the Vex Robotics team qualified for the National TSA contest held in Washington, D.C., at the end of June.

The Robotics Club is sponsored by Cotie and Statistics Teacher Candace Quetsch. Both teachers have served on numerous district STEM teams and currently are teachers in the Science, Engineering, and High Technology Academy at Bartlett. Both individuals have been involved in the TSA Chapter that was started this year at Bartlett.

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