SAS Robotics Heads Back to Worlds
Winning once is impressive. Winning the highest honor two years in a row starts to feel like a statement.
That’s right, for the second consecutive year Shanghai American School’s varsity VEX V5 Robotics team, PXR0, has earned the Excellence Award at the ACAMIS National Tournament for Chinese international schools. The award came with the only qualification spot available at the ACAMIS National Tournament for the VEX Robotics World Championship in St. Louis this April!
If that weren’t enough, the four teams in the semifinals? Were all SAS! With PXR0 in first, Vantage, King, and Clankers United continued the domination right after them.
The Excellence Award recognizes far more than match results. As Robotics Coach Megan Wollak explains, it reflects “not just results, but the hard work behind them,” including strong rankings in Skills and Autonomous Coding, a thoughtful team interview, and an Engineering Notebook that captures authentic collaboration and inquiry. All this combined led PXR0 to earn Tournament Champions honors and ultimately secured the Excellence Award and their return ticket to Worlds!
What set the team apart was not only performance, but presence. Coaches Wollak and Jaime Guzman noted that the students consistently supported younger teams and shared what they learned throughout the event, adding that their leadership and sportsmanship “lifted everyone around them, on and off the competition floor.” In a competition defined by precision and pressure, their conduct stood out just as much as their robot.
The PXR0 team heading to St. Louis includes Bella H. ‘29, Jason K. ‘26, Jerry L. ‘26, Jade L. ‘27, Ethan L. ‘26, Preston L. ‘26, Brian S. ‘26, Tiffany W. ‘26, and William Z. ‘27. Together, they represent a mix of experience, leadership, technical skills, and an impressive amount of time spent refining every detail.
That combination of technical depth, design thinking, and collaborative problem-solving doesn't emerge from competition prep alone. It's built over time through integration with the STEM program at SAS, where students develop foundational skills in robotics, physical computing, coding, and engineering long before they step onto a competition floor. The classroom is where the habits form, including systematic coding, iterative design and fabrication, and applied engineering, and the competition is where that coursework pays off.
Success extended beyond the high school team. In the VEX IQ competition, middle school teams captured the highest honor of the tournament: the Teamwork Championship, won by the Eagle Dynamics team, along with the Design Award, Judges Award, and Think Award.
As those younger students look ahead to high school, they'll have an even clearer route into programs like this one. Beginning in August 2026, the new high school Generative Technologies and Applied Engineering (GTAE) pathway at SAS will give incoming students a more structured entry point into robotics, physical computing, coding, and engineering design, formalizing the pipeline that has already produced back-to-back Excellence Award winners. If the last two years are any indication, the best may still be ahead.