"Unprecedented Success for West High Robotics"

Continuing on with robotics, the Utah Regional was mind-blowingly awesome. Once again, I will default to Ms. Bulson for the recap:

April 20, 2026 Dear families and supporters of West High School Robotics,

It is with great pride and pleasure that I write to inform you that the “Utah Curse” has been broken!

For the first time ever, a Utah team has captained the winning alliance of the FIRST FRC Utah regional.

West High School in Salt Lake City, UT is home to two FIRST FRC teams: 3006, Red Rock Robotics and 2726, Red Pebble Rebels

Over the past weekend, both teams performed extremely well at the competition. Forty-two teams from Utah, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Hawaii, Canada, China, and Taiwan competed at the Maverick Center over the course of two and a half intense days. After each team played 10 qualification matches with randomly assigned alliances, Red Pebble Rebels ranked 9th place and captained the 6th seed alliance into playoffs. Red Rock Robotics ranked 3rd place and captained the 2nd seed alliance. Red Pebble Rebels were eliminated in the 2nd round of playoffs, and (as already mentioned) Red Rock Robotics captained the winning alliance.

Here is a video of Red Pebble Rebels and Red Rock Robotics, working together to win Qualification Match 70: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJZn6bVLfyQ&t=26s 

And here is a video of the final match of competition, when the winning alliance bested two of the top teams in the world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkxvdZveyJU 

Red Pebble Rebels finishes the season ranked 6 out of 16 Utah teams.

Red Rock Robotics now advances to the World Championship competition in Houston, ranked 69 out of 3724 teams, worldwide.

More information about the program and the game:

In FIRST FRC competition, students design, build, and program large industrial-style robots to compete in a themed game each season. The season begins each January, when the game theme and rules are announced. Students have 6-8 weeks to prepare a robot for competition. In Utah and the intermountain west, competitions are regionals. Teams pay about $6,000 to compete against their peers from all over the United States and the world (other states in the US operate with a “district” model where competition is restricted to local teams).

In the 2026 game, Rebuilt, two alliances of 3 robots each compete to:

Score “Fuel” (foam balls) into a goal called the Hub

Navigate field obstacles

Climb a Tower at the end for bonus points

Teams earn points by:

Scoring Fuel (main scoring method)

Completing climbs on the Tower

Achieving thresholds for Ranking Points (RPs) like:

Fuel scoring milestones (e.g., “Energized” / “Supercharged”)

Successful climbing achievements

The team is led by head coach, Alison Bulson

Assistant coach, Enrique Arch-Larreta

Mentors Trevor Smith, Loren Majersik, Cameron Wold, Russell Brinton, and Jason Don

Thanks for all your support!

Sincerely,

Alison

***

It was an amazing event. 3006 lost one of their initial matches (battery issue? I can't quite remember...) but then worked their way up through all of the qualification rounds until they were finally ranked number 3. The number 1 team (Hawaii Kids) picked the number 2 team (Pair of Dice) as their first alliance selection, so Red Rock became captain of the Number 2 Alliance and took a gamble with the Idaho "Tators" as their second pick, even though they were much farther down in the rankings. While the Tators sometimes had reliability issues, their triple-shooter bot can unload a crazy amount of fuel when working well. In fact, earlier in the competition it had unleashed so much fuel at one moment that it literally clogged the hub and they had to restart the match! Paired with RRR, I think this was just about the only combo that could beat the well-funded Hawaii Kids. And win they did! They actually played the Number 1 alliance four times. 

The first time, the Number 1 Alliance tipped 3006 and got a penalty so severe that they scored zero points! So much drama! 

But then the number 1 alliance worked their way back up through the loser's bracket to play Red Rock again. They played three more times, with RRR squeaking out two wins for a Utah Regional victory!

Even though the kids play Ultimate, I'm sure this is the most I've ever sounded like a sports mom.  And it's certainly the loudest I've ever cheered. Or the most I've held my breath. I guess I relate better to geeky robots shooting fuel at a target than to those who can layout for a catch. :)

Anyway, here are some photos that we took:

Eli had the largest cheering squad by far! Both sets of grandparents, Justin and Brianna, Callie and Adam, all his siblings, three of his siblings friends, his parents, and every single one of his cousins! Plus, NomiAnn made T-shirts for the crew! Too bad we had to cover them up with coats most of the time. Turns out the Maverik Center is freezing since it's used as a hockey rink some of the time. This was actually a big problem for the robots because the batteries don't perform well in the cold. RRR kept theirs in a cooler with heating blankets so that they wouldn't "brown out." 

But hey, chilly or not, we were all smiles. Anders was SO excited. This cutie was so excited to support his cousin that he chose to come to robotics instead of going on a field trip to the Museum of Natural Curiosity. Now that's love!

Callie, Brooklyn, and Lily.

Anders and Violet getting cozy in their seats. Too adorable!

Annika came with our neighbor Jonathan.

More Brooklyn and Lily snapshots.

Hanging out with Papa Kay between rounds. Looks like he might have teased Annika about Steven.

Eila gets some NomiAnn snuggles. Don't miss Charles and Susie farther down the line!

Look closely and you can see Anders with his fists pumped as he cheers the victory.

He must have learned from Mom!

Meanwhile, Eli was focused.

Such anticipation!

Apparently there was a bet between hardware and software that hardware lost, meaning that Khangai had to wear the maid's costume. Despite being unusual attire for this stoic student, the maid costume had a reputation for bringing good luck. I'm pretty sure that reputation has been solidified forever!

Champions!

That's the mayor's son (and Eli's friend) waving the flag.

Look closely and you'll see Eli atop someone's back.

More cheers and hugs for Eli as the tournament ended.

Family, thank you SO much for all the support. It meant the world!

And speaking of worlds, 3006's stellar performance qualified West High for the 2026 FRC World Competition in Houston. Congratulations!!! That was the great news. The sad news is that the team had very limited funding, so not many students got to attend. Red Rock Robotics recognized Eli's outstanding commitment by nominating him for the Dean's list. However despite his stellar contributions, he didn't get to attend Worlds, mostly because he is a younger student and got to attend last year. While we understood the reasoning, it was still disappointing to have the team travel without him when robotics is SO important to Eli. When I became a parent, I had no idea that I would feel all the hurts of my children as if they were my own.

Even so, we celebrated with the team as they proceeded to do very well in Houston as well. Here is Ms. Bulson's recap: 

May 4, 2026

Dear Friends and Families of WHS Robotics Teams,

I am certain that your students have been sharing our journey in Houston with you, but just in case, here is a recap:

West High's “varsity” level robotics team won their division championship in Houston, Texas at the FIRST World Championships last Saturday.  

West's veteran team, Red Rock Robotics (3006), competed at the FIRST Robotics Competition in the Archimedes Division.  They were one of 75 teams in the Division and a member of the winning alliance. The same alliance then advanced to the Einstein Field; the highest level of FIRST competition in the world, where they were eliminated in the third round of playoffs, finishing in a tie for fifth place, overall. 

Red Rock Robotics students designed and built a robot with a unique shooting mechanism (dye rotor to turret shooter) that could efficiently fire up to 12 balls per second into a high goal.  The students programmed the robot to shoot on the move, resulting in a robot that could score in the 98th percentile, globally.  They were selected by the captains of the Archimedes alliance for their versatility in match play.  

Highlights from World Championship:

-Best performance in Team History

-First team in Utah to ever advance to the Einstein Field

-Division Champions, Archimedes Division (first UT team to do so)

-2nd Highest score in a match in the Archimedes Division (787 points)

Season Highlights

-Utah Regional Champions

-First Utah team to captain an alliance that won the Utah Regional in the 15 year history of the Utah Regional

-Top Utah team with an Expected point average of 175.7 points per match

-Industrial Design Award at Idaho Regional Competition

To ALL the students and mentors who worked on 3006 Gustav and 2726 Barb, you are amazing! We are so impressed by your commitment and engineering prowess. You represent West High so well! We can't wait to see the success of Red Rock Robotics and the Red Pebble Rebels in seasons to come. And Eli, we're so glad you've found your people. Your enthusiasm for robotics and learning and life is contagious! We love you to the moon and back--and have every confidence that you can design the rocket to get us there!

Red Rock Robotics in Idaho

Robotics! 

Considering how pivotal robotics has been in Eli's life, I've blogged embarrassingly little about it. In truth, I haven't been witness to the vast majority of what happens. For months on end, Eli has spent almost every weekday afternoon, many weekday evenings, and some Saturdays in the robotics lab. He comes home, hops on the computer, and continues designing in CAD because he loves it so very much. During peak season, the robotics advisers have seen far more of Eli than we have. I'm grateful to them for doing a great job of raising our son.

And so, it seems appropriate that I borrow from the words of the Alison Bulson, physics teacher and robotics mentor extraordinaire, to outline the success of Red Rock Robotics. 

Idaho Regional Recap

March 30, 2026 

Dear Robotics Team(s) Parents,

 

Thank you for entrusting your students to us for our trip to the Idaho regional! Although the end result was not what we hoped for, we all learned a lot (as always), bonded, and even had some fun. I’m sure your student is exhausted, and I hope they will be able to quickly catch up on sleep and missed school work (I hope the same for myself).

 

Our veteran team, Red Rock Robotics finished 3^rd out of 35th after qualifying rounds.  Our rookie team, Red Pebble Rebels finished 31st out of 35th. 

Although the competition was in Idaho, many teams came from out of state, including teams from Utah (5), Taiwan, China, Canada (2), Montana, Nevada, Arizona (3), Oregon, and Hawaii. 

 

Here’s a summary of what happened with 3006:

Our team had an extraordinary day 1 during qualifying matches.   We finished the day undefeated with a 6-0 record, putting up the top two scores of the tournament.   

Day 2 plagued our robot with mechanical and electrical problems, and bad luck that resulted in three defeats, with a catastrophic failure during the first round of playoffs that ultimately ended our play in the tournament early.  We were the alliance captain of the 2 seed alliance in the playoffs.  We selected alliance partners from Missoula Montana and South Jordan (Bingham High.)  Our alliance ultimately was defeated by the 4 seed after a close match in the third round of playoffs.    

Here is a video of our robot performing at the end of day 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLglUOxRkiQ

You'll see our robot scoring a lot of fuel.  It does this by using auto aim, and shoot on the move, both controlled by software programmed by students.  It utilizes april tags located around to the field to acquire its position.  The dye rotor design allows for rapid fire shooting, and making us virtually indefensible, as seen in the match video. 

We ended up with an expected point average of 151.5, ranking us first in Utah and 121 out of 3746 in the world (97th percentile). 

The team won the Industrial Design Award. We were recognized for our dye rotor mechanism. A complex and effective mechanism that is rarely implemented.

Here is a graph of how we rank among Utah teams:

And a summary of 2726’s experience:

This year, we started a JV style rookie robot team to give new team members more opportunities to participate.   They built a giant robot (maxing out the legal limits), that could dump tons of fuel into the hopper.   Day 1 saw the team undergo a series of minor hardware and software issues which led to the team getting better and better each round.  By day 2, the team was maximizing its robot's potential.  Here is a video of the team leading their alliance to victory (look for 2726 - the BIG RED robot) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyB9tGi6vkI

SO! Now we pick ourselves back up and prepare for the next battle: Utah Regional, April 17-18! We will have some more late-night shop nights coming up and we (those who’s schedule allows) plan to work through spring break.

I will email you all again soon with details about ways you can help with the late nights and Utah regional.

 

Sincerely,

Alison Bulson

And here are the photos that were sent with that e-mail. While Eli primarily worked with the veteran bot 3006 (Gustav), he also helped design the intake for the rookie bot, 2726 (Barb). In case you are wondering, BARB stands for Big Awesome Red Box, or something close to it. As the announcer explained, this bot has 'big aspirations.")

Here are the members of 3006 with their Industrial Design award. Eli's looking mighty proud in the middle of the pack.

And here's Barb's team. It's pretty impressive that West has managed to design and program two functional bots, allowing so many more students to learn and participate in the process.

The drive team.

And here's 3006 with their alliance.

***

And now for the Idaho experience from our perspective as cheerleaders. We drove up on Friday, stopping in Rupert to see Grandma Hansen.

Talia, Grandma Hansen has certainly downsized, but your Covie is still there!

 

3006 was already competing as we worked our way up to Boise.  It was so fun to listen in as their undefeated bot won match after match. The announcer  repeatedly described Red Rock as "hoovering up" all the fuel. As we arrived in Nampa, it was pretty evident that their bot was one of the very best in the field. Their number 1 slot was well-earned!

As for Eli, he enjoyed showing us around the tent where all the last minute repairs and tune-ups happen.

So proud of you, Eli!

That night we enjoyed a delicious Indian dinner before making our way to the hotel. I forgot to take pictures, but Grandma Susie and Grandpa Charles joined us, driving all the way to Idaho to cheer Eli.

The next day the magical spell broke a bit as 3006 became "injured" when the raspberry pi mother board  unexpectedly fried. This computer automatically programmed the shooter, so without it they had to rely on manual targeting which is slower and less accuarte. While 3006 was still captain of the number two alliance, in the end they didn't place as highly as anticipated nor did they qualify to compete at the World Championships in Houston. Even so, we couldn't have been more proud of the team for their hard work and persistence, particularly in the face of disappoinment.

On our way back home to Salt Lake, we stopped off at Shoshone Falls. While there wasn't as much water as during some springs, it was still quite impressive.

It was a beautiful place to watch the sunset.

Thanks for joining us on this robotics adventure, Annika! I'm glad you got to experience the high speed, fuel-lobbing fun that has captivated Eli for so many months.

Love you, Eli! Fueled by grit sparkled with brilliance, your engineering future shines bright. :)