These Mumbai Teenagers Just Made Indian Robotics History. Three Years Running.

Team Sigma FRC 9692 has done something no Indian robotics team has ever managed The students behind this extraordinary run are from your city and they are heading to Houston next monthTwentynine high school students from Mumbai have just returned from Turkey with five international robotics awards a firstplace finish at the Avrasya Regional Championship and a record that has never been achieved by an Indian team in the history of the FIRST Robotics Competition For the third year in a row Team Sigma FRC 9692 has qualified for the FRC World Championship in Houston Texas They leave on April 26thThe team competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition a programme that many in India are still discovering Founded by American inventor Dean Kamen FIRST challenges high school students around the world to design build and programme a fullscale robot in just six weeks then compete against over 600 teams from 30 countries at a single World Championship in Houston It is by any measure the most demanding robotics competition for students at this level anywhere in the world Universities across the United States Europe and Australia actively scout it And Team Sigma mentored by RFL Academy has been showing up and winning since their very first yearNo Indian team has done this before Three consecutive World Championship qualifications and each year they come back with something biggerThis season has been their most remarkable yet At the Marmara Regional in Istanbul in March they won the Engineering Inspiration Award booking their place at the World Championship for the third time Then came Avrasya The team finished ranked first overall among all competing teams scoring 99 points to top the entire field They also won the Finalist Alliance Award for their performance on the competition floor and Lead Coach Virendrasinh Vaghela received the Woodie Flowers Finalist Award one of the most personal honours in the FRC programme given to mentors who inspire through the practice of engineering rather than simply the teaching of itBut the award that has the robotics world talking is the FIRST Impact Award It is the highest honour in the entire competition given not just for what a team does on the field but for what they do beyond it Team Sigma is the first Indian team in FRC history to win itEngineering Inspiration MarmaraRank 1 AvrasyaFIRST Impact Award AvrasyaFinalist Alliance AvrasyaWoodie Flowers Finalist AvrasyaTheir robot this season is called Bottimus Prime It runs on a swervewheel drivetrain which allows it to move in any direction without turning and carries a precision active intake system for collecting and scoring fuel In the opening 20 seconds of each match it operates entirely on preprogrammed code with no human control at all and scores 26 fuel in that window Over the course of a full match it scores over 100 The students built every part of it themselvesWhat earned the Impact Award though is what happens when the robot is not on the field Since the team began they have run over 150 outreach programmes across Maharashtra set up 14 AI and Robotics labs in underprivileged and municipal schools reached over 65000 students through handson workshops mentored 8 other FIRST teams across India and raised over Rs 35 lakhs from Indian companies to fund it all Maharashtra Chief MinisterDevendra Fadnavis personally congratulated the team for their contribution to STEM education across the stateThe team is mentored by RFL Academy Robofun Lab Pvt Ltd a robotics and STEM education organisation working with schools in Mumbai Ahmedabad Surat Rajkot and Riyadh Their previous World Championship runs produced the Rookie AllStar Award in 2024 on their debut and the Judges Choice Award in Houston in 2025 This year they go back as awardwinners recordholders and quite possibly the bestprepared Indian robotics team ever to walk into that arenaThey leave for Houston on April 26th The World Championship runs through May 5th

These Mumbai Teenagers Just Made Indian Robotics History. Three Years Running.

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These Mumbai Teenagers Just Made Indian Robotics History. Three Years Running.

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