A team of Chandler Unified students was the only Arizona elementary squad to take home an award from the recent 2023 VEX IQ Robotics World Championship competition in Dallas, Texas.

Team 4751Y, also known as “It’s Fine, Just Add More,” is a competitive robotics team comprised of CUSD elementary students from Fulton Elementary in Chandler and Weinberg Gifted Academy in Gilbert.

Team 4751Y earned the Create Award for its division.

The students are Jeremy LaPaglia, Natalie Milligan, Adam Shumway and Autumn Topczewski. They are coached by Lori Ruff of Robotics Edge with support from Matt LaPaglia.

The trip to Texas marked the end of Team 4751Y’s 2023 season. The three-day event is one of the largest robotics competition in the world and included 800 elementary school teams from across the globe.

The CUSD team was one of only 12 Arizona elementary teams to qualify for worlds this year.

During teamwork competition matches, the Chandler district students were paired with teams from Canada, Ireland, California, Utah, Colorado, Texas, Kentucky, and Indiana.

The Create Award is presented to the team whose robot incorporates the most creative engineering solution to the challenge of this season’s game. During a team interview, the team must demonstrate effective communication skills, teamwork, professionalism, and a student-centered ethos.

The team incorporated chef’s costumes to play off their name and build their team spirit for Worlds.

In the VEX IQ competition, students use guidance from their coaches and mentors to build a robot using snap-together VEX IQ parts. The robot is then used to solve an engineering challenge that is presented in the form of a game.

Teams work together to score points in teamwork matches and get to show off their skills individually in driver-controlled and programming robot skills challenges. There are also various awards presented by the judges.

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