Fox Chapel Area wins at state robotics competition

Two teams of Fox Chapel Area High School students won awards at the BotsIQ state finals competition.

The “Trident 2.0” battle bot won the “Best Engineered Bot” award, second place in the “Engineering Documentation” category, and tied for 13th place in the battle portion of the competition. The team members are juniors Zhanyu “Eric” Jiang, Ayush Patel, and Georgy “Gosha” Pistsov, and sophomore Cecilia Sumrok.

The “Rockem Sockem 2.0” bot won third place in “Engineering Documentation,” as well as tying for ninth place in battle. Those team members are seniors Jackson Biehl, Benjamin Sun, and Yixin “Amy” Zhang, and juniors Mateo Phelan-Vidal, Nicholas Spector, and Brady Stocker.

Students from both teams have been invited to participate in national tournaments in Ohio and Colorado based on their performances throughout the season.

Additional members of the club include juniors Zachary Chan, Holden Driver, Ethan Kabus, David Kong, Benjamin Kirby, Tristan Kobylinski, Zekai Lin, Mikhail Lukichev, Gabriel Mahone, Parick Pohl, and Rayyan Saidi; sophomore Zachary Chao; and freshmen Luke Shin and Brandon Tilstra.

Fox Chapel Area High School’s industry sponsor is Aerotech Inc., located in RIDC O’Hara.

A total of 68 teams from 48 school districts participated in the BotsIQ state finals. The competition was held April 10-11, 2026, at PennWest California.