Teams Hotel and November earn spots at VEX Worlds, and bring a championship legacy with them!
Not every invitation arrives in an envelope. Sometimes it comes in the form of a robot; built by hand, programmed with purpose, and driven across a competition floor by students who refused to quit. For two teams from Challenger Intermediate School’s Robotics Team, that invitation has arrived: a spot at the VEX Robotics World Championship in St. Louis, MO from April 28th - 30th.
Teams Hotel and November have earned their place among the best student robotics programs on the planet. They will compete alongside top teams from around the world, representing not just their school, but the entire community that shaped them and a coaching staff that has spent four years forming something extraordinary.
Behind every circuit board and code commit are three coaches who made it all possible. Head Coach Doug Mann, along with Pam Cole and Rochelle Mann, have served as the heart and backbone of the program - not just as sponsors in name, but as mentors in practice. Their classrooms became laboratories. Their after-school hours became workshops. Their belief in their students became the fuel that carried two teams all the way to the world stage.
The results speak for themselves. In just four years since the program's inception, Challenger Robotics have produced 19 tournament trophies and a combined seven state championship titles, making Challenger one of the most successful elementary robotics programs in the state of Kansas. This school year alone, the team has collected eight trophies, three of which were state championships. Those banners now hang proudly in the school gym as a daily reminder of what effort, teamwork, and high expectations can produce.
"Our goal has always been to give students opportunities to think critically, solve problems, and work together at a high level," says Mann. "The trophies and banners are meaningful, but what matters most is the growth we see in our students. These students didn't just build robots. They built themselves into engineers, collaborators, and competitors."
The VEX Robotics World Championship is no ordinary competition. It draws thousands of student teams from across the globe, each arriving with months of preparation, custom-engineered machines, and the kind of quiet determination that only comes from determination and teamwork. For these teams, simply qualifying is a landmark achievement. But those who know these students know they're not coming just to participate. They're coming to compete.
As long-time Goddard Public Schools educators, the Challenger Robotics coaches have watched their students grow from curious beginners into confident problem-solvers who now speak fluently in the language of motors, sensors, and autonomous routines. The championship in St. Louis will be the culmination of that journey: a moment where everything these students have learned gets put to the ultimate test under the brightest lights their program has ever seen.
The Worlds Championship will host tens of thousands of attendees across the multi-day event, with teams from dozens of countries vying for top honors. For Challenger Intermediate School, having not one but two teams on that floor is a testament to the depth of what has been built: a program, a culture, and a community that believes young people are capable of extraordinary things when given the tools and the trust to try.
Teams Hotel and November head to St. Louis carrying all of that with them: nineteen trophies worth of experience, seven state titles worth of belief, and an entire community cheering them on from back home. The robots are ready. The students are ready. And so is everyone who helped them get here.
USD 265 | Challenger Intermediate School Robotics | VEX Worlds 2026 | April 28–30 | St. Louis, MO