Lake Stevens robotics team receives world recognition

LAKE STEVENS — Lake Stevens Robotics team 8931R, known as Arsenic, won second place in the skills portion of the VEX Robotics Competition in Bellingham on Jan. 17, earning them a fifth-place ranking in the world and fourth nationally.

A score so high that only earns them second place speaks to the “world-class” competition in Washington, Lakes Stevens Robotics coach Jeff Lynass said in an interview.

The VEX Robotics Competitions are designed by the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation and change every year. Robots are designed and programmed to fit each season’s competition.

For the 2025-26 season, the main competition pairs two teams together, with one robot each, to go against two other teams. Each pair tries to keep its colored blocks in the scoring areas while pushing the other color out. Matches include both an autonomous period, with no human interaction, and a driver-controlled period.

There are also side competitions that test both the robot’s autonomous ability and the driver’s skills without other teams on the field. That’s where Team Arsenic won second place — in the skills competition — at the ROBO-BASH 2026.

The skills competition awards points for blocks scored in various goals, blocks removed from certain areas, and finishing with the robot in the parking zone.

“It was just a huge relief, I think, more than excitement,” team Arsenic member Chris Rapues, 17, said in an interview with the team.

Team Arsenic has four members, including Rapues. Corbin Kingston, 18, is the data analyst and project manager. Riley Walrod is the primary programmer and strategy analyst. Along with being the scout and a programmer, Colwyn Roberts puts together the notebook that explains all the decisions made throughout the process. Rapues is in charge of building and is the team’s driver.

Rapues was confident he could earn a high score on the driving portion of the skills challenge. However, the team was unsure how the autonomous portion would go, he said.

“We didn’t have enough time to tune it,” Rapues said. “We had issues over, just time constraints over winter break with college applications and stuff. So, we knew that was the weak point of our run. And because it’s programming, and we don’t have control over that, it’s really just up to RNG at that point.”

Luckily for Arsenic, the randomly generated number was the right one in this instance, and the blocks landed where they needed. They only lost to the current No. 1 team in the world.

At one point, four of the top 20 teams in the world were in Washington, Walrod said. Last year, three teams in the world finals were local.

However, competing against the best helped make Arsenic better.

“The people around us help us a lot,” Roberts said. “People here that know what they’re doing and are really skilled is very beneficial to us.”

That aspect of community and mentorship is reflected in the Lake Stevens Robotics program, which is held at Cavelero Mid High School. The school houses eighth and ninth graders, but the 10th through 12th graders travel from Lake Stevens High School so that all 70 to 80 students can work in the same place.

“Nobody’s sitting around doing nothing,” Lynass said. “A good share of these people come in and they’re super smart, but they haven’t had the opportunity to collaborate and communicate and get all those soft skills that they need to be successful.”

Coming into the program, students meet “a bunch of people that are speaking their language, and are into this as they are, and they blossom,” he said.

Many of the judges and volunteers at competitions are graduates of the program, Lynass said.

“It’s like a reunion every year,” he said. “That community is probably what I’m most prideful about.”

Ninth-graders Daniela Mondragon-Martinez, Kashika Sivakumar and Nuri Delos Reyes make up team 7784R (Mecha Arrows).

The sense of community is one of the most important aspects to Delos Reyes, he said. It helped him open up.

“Earlier, for me, people didn’t really talk a lot; or like, I didn’t really want to talk a lot,” Delos Reyes said in an interview with the team. “Everyone helping each other — I like that a lot.”

Being part of the robotics program also means being part of something bigger, Mondragon-Martinez said.

“We helped out these little Girl Scouts get three robotics badges,” she said. “We stayed after school, helped prepare so that they could learn a little bit about what we do here.”

They also hosted multiple food drives, Sivakumar said.

“We’re still trying to contribute as much as we can because we’re like a big group,” Mondragon-Martinez said. “We want to give back to the community and help people come into the club even if they’re not sure if engineering is exactly what they want to do.”

While Arsenic might be the top team in Lake Stevens, they are not too big to help other teams. For example, Walrod is writing training code for the other teams.

The group also releases all their old notebooks, Kingston said.

“We’ve got experience and help with the other high school team. So before we leave, we’re trying to bring it down to middle schools,” he said. “I come walk through there every day trying to ask what they need help for.”

At the same time, these robotic experts are taking college-level and AP classes, writing college applications and completing all other schoolwork.

“I love doing this,” Tate Broadbent said during an interview with his team. “This is my fun time for myself. I love working with these guys — working with the club. So this is my free time, but it does take up a lot of time.”

“Every spare second I have,” Jacob Bishop added.

Broadbent and Bishop are both juniors and members of team 8931W, the Vexing Vipers. Their team leader is Harshita Sinha, also a junior.

Being part of the robotics program is a lot of work, Sinha said. It’s important to have a team where everyone can rely on and lean on one another.

“I think working with the team that’s so dedicated has made it so much easier because we’re all on the same page,” she said. “We all want to do the same things.”

It also helps to have support from all the coaches and the district’s Career and Technical Education Department, Sinha said.

“They have been the biggest support throughout this whole program,” she said. “We’ve always wanted to be a competitive team, and they have never told us, ‘No, you can’t.’ We’ve never heard that word.”

“I mean, we’ve heard, ‘No, you can’t break the robot,’” she added.

This is the Lake Stevens Robotics Program’s 15th year. It started with 12 members working on robots and “three nerds” making it to the world competition, Lynass said.

Now, team Arsenic seeks to continue the tradition.

Taylor Scott Richmond: 425-339-3046; taylor.richmond@heraldnet.com; X: @BTayOkay