Rogers State University's Robotics Team Heading To World Championship In Dallas

The Rogers State University robotics team, the RoboClaws, is heading to the VEX World Championship in just a few days. This comes only 5 months after the team's first tournament.

RSU is the only university from Oklahoma with a team competing on the world stage this year. The RoboClaws is a team only in its first year. It's made up of three students: My Le, Khai Nguyen, and Nghi Nguyen.

The RoboClaws have only participated in three other tournaments since it first formed in 2023. From the first tournament in December 2023 to now, the team has made massive strides in a short amount of time.

In fact, in one of the more recent tournaments, the RoboClaws were able to take down schools like Purdue who have much bigger teams and have been competing for a lot longer.

The RoboClaws' advisor, Dr. Curt Sparling, said he believes that despite the team's limited experience in tournaments, RSU is going to do well on the world stage.

"It is just mind boggling on the growth they have done. I knew that this was a special group of students, but frankly, I did not know how special they actually were," Sparling said.

The RoboClaws may be a small team, but it has adapted quickly. After not getting the results the team might have wanted in the first tournament in December, the students took it as a learning experience. That led to the next two tournaments where the RoboClaws finished highly ranked each time.

Sparling said even though this team may not have the biggest teams with experience from older students with tournament experience that the RoboClaws can lean on, RSU is going to be one of the hardest working teams day in and day out.

"This is what I promise. Our team is one of the hardest working teams that are out there. You come into this building almost regardless of the time of day, and they are out there programming. They’re driving. They’re practicing," Sparling said.

The RoboClaws will be competing against 120 of robotics clubs from around the world in Dallas in just a few days.