A little seventh grade team from Tri-City United Middle School’s robotics club called the Circuit Surfers (3589A), consisting of AJ Munguia, Landon Ballman, Colton Claffey, Jake Goettl, and Vincent Carpenter, has qualified for the VEX V5 Robotics World Championships to be held April 25-27, 2026, in St. Louis, Mo. at the America’s Center.
“The VEX Robotics World Championship is a gathering of the top 588 Middle School Teams from all around the world,” said Robotics Head Advisor Jeff Ballman. It’s a first-ever honor the club has ever received, according to Jeff Ballman.
Members of the team are pretty excited too. Munguia said, “Absolutely incredible. It’s an honor to be the first in TCU history.” Landon Ballman echoed that, “Exicted and nervous. We hope we do well at Worlds.” Claffey said, “Super-suprised, since its our first year competing on a robotics team.”
Advisor Ballman they have been working at this honor all year, dating back to June 2025. “They are a seventh grade team and the only experience they have had with robotics before this year was in their elementary and middle school robotics classes,” said Jeff Ballman. “They all have a fascination with how robots work, and love to build and figure out the solutions to different problems. They had to figure out how to design and build a bot to meet this year's competition called ‘Push Back.’ This year’s competition has them picking up ball-like objects and having to place them in tubes with a bonus given to the team that can control the center of those tubes.”
Claffey says, “perfecting our autonomous code has been a big challenge for our team.” Another big challenge that Munguia said...
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Submitted photo
The Circuit Surfers team during a competition at United South Central on Jan. 31 of this year.