Some very dedicated kids at Davis High School have put hours and hours into robotics and are now headed to the World VEX Competition. The robotics team won the state championship on March 8, making it the 13th consecutive state championship for the school.

“Our secret sauce with 32 kids in my club is that I can't do everything,” said CTE teacher and coach, Dan Leifson who started the program 14 years ago. “The magic is students have to figure it out and learn from other students. It’s a revolving door. I kind of think of it as the dynasty aspect. They have 14 years of giants’ shoulders they can stand on.”

In order to compete, the club has to build and program a robot that can complete certain tasks to get points during the competition.

“The average time spent is 20-30 hours planning and building the robot to get it to the point of programming,” said team member and senior, Andrew Gagner. “Then it takes another 10 hours to program it to a rudimentary level then we go back and make fixes. We spend endless time practicing and writing the perfect code. Outside of a competition it’s about 50-70 hours on average for a robot.”

Gagner said his team has gotten very close. “Two weeks before the state championship we practice and prepare and build up to become state champions. At the actual event we’re paired with a random team. You don’t know who you’re going to get with. Then there are seven matches spread out over about five hours.”

The team that is ranked number one overall gets to pick who they want to bring into the finals with them, he said. “Then teams are placed into brackets and to win in the grand finals it’s best out of three. There’s not a lot of time in between. Your motor can get hot very quickly and you have to find a way to cool it down.”

The world championship is the largest competition, said senior Ellie Abel. “Teams come from all over the world, Europe, Asia, etc. It’s fun to meet people from all over. You’re paired with random teams so that fosters teamwork and there's camaraderie even though we have different languages.”

It’s a lively atmosphere, she said. “Teams meet and become good friends among strangers because you all love the same thing. It builds a strong VEX community.”

Leifson has been teaching at Davis High for 14 years. “In my first few weeks into teaching a student came into my office and asked for my help starting a robotic/automation club,” he said. “That started it.”

In a few months they went to a competition, he said. “The kids caught fire. We’ve had success and heartbreak. Once we saw a world championship my kids were hooked.”

In 2011-2012, the team qualified for the championship. “We did terrible,” said Leifson. “We were not prepared so we got trounced. The lessons learned were numerous. We learned a bit in our failure.”

The next year teams were on fire, he said. “They worked crazy hard to compete in the worlds. We were one of the top 24 teams in the world.”

There have been up years and down years, Leifson said. “Every year is different because they change the game. It’s not a repeat.”

Davis won the world championship in 2015 and 2018, he said. “It was pretty incredible. Ironically the champs were brothers. The older one won his senior year and his little brother later won his senior year.”

The world championship was set for May 6-8. “Our focus is on a happy, harmonious club,” said Leifson. “At the end of the day – this is family to them.”