Our Story

Our Beginnings

The iBotBuilders team started out as a small local FLL team, consisting of Bradley and a lot of members that have since moved on. Eventually, we realized that there could be more to us than just robotics competitions, and we sought to expand our platform to better the robotics education around our area. As we gradually grew, many of our members grew up, and we began participating in higher-level robotics competitions, starting with FTC.

In our first year in FTC, Bradley and the team managed to make it into states, though their run was cut short and didn’t make it to worlds. Afterward, almost the entire team left due to other duties, and many of the FLL team members joined Bradley. In the two years that followed, our team failed to reach states twice in a row, leading us to seek our another robotics competition series, which ended up being the VEX Robotics Competition.

VEX Robotics Competition

After our team failed to make FTC states for the second time by an inch, we faced a tough decision. We felt as though we were fighting an uphill battle in this game that we were not accustomed to. Would the team do FTC for another year, or would they join the VEX robotics competition? After two years of unsuccessful qualification for the state competition, the ibotbuilders knew that their reputation was on the line. Losing for another year would hurt the club’s outreach.

After several weeks of contemplation and research about the VEX competition, the team held a meeting and decided to switch to VEX. The coach decided to split the high school members into two teams. We decided that two teams would allow every member to be more active and efficient. Besides VEX VRC, the ibotbuilders decided to add the VEX IQ curriculum for younger students.

Over the summer, all the team members experimented with the new VEX parts and built prototype robots for the 2019-2020 VEX VRC competition. After a month of building, both teams decided to build two entirely different robots. The teams worked hard every week, collaborated, and got the job done right before the first competition.

Unfortunately, the first VEX robotics competition was a total embarrassment for the team. Neither teams 66856A nor 66856B even qualified for the elimination round. This told us something. We didn’t work hard enough. Both teams needed to spend more time on the robots, especially the B team. The B team realized that their current design would not give good results, so B team members disassembled the robot and used the A team design.

The team members worked longer hours and during the weekdays, sometimes working more than 17 hours a week. The A team’s success after their third competition gave inspiration to the B team. By the last New Jersey regional VEX VRC competition, the B team managed to also qualify for the State Championships.

All the hard work paid off. Both iBotBuilders teams were able to show that they were fierce competitors and that they could stand the heat of the competition.

The State championships were intense. Previous champions and tough competitors from previous VEX VRC world championships competed at the NJ state championships. However, both teams persevere. The B team qualified for a good seat in the elimination round and performed well. The A team did exceptionally well. Despite all the great teams at the state championships, the A team managed to secure 1st place in the qualifier rounds with 50 teams. The A team also managed to be a semi-finalist team in the elimination round, making the A team the only rookies at the 2020 NJ State Championships to qualify for the world championship. In addition, the A team flawlessly executed their autonomous program in every single round they played at the competition, allowing the ibotbuilders A team to receive the coveted Think Award.

The iBotBuilders VEX IQ teams also had a great season, with every single one of them having qualified for the NJ VEX IQ state championships.

The success of the rookie season for us allowed us to expand our outreach program. We were invited to teach classes at the Freehold Borough schools in classes of 20+ students. We want our students to open their minds to robotics and problem-solving. We want to teach young and brilliant minds and help them succeed.