St. Louis students ‘want to win’ at international robotics competition held downtown
Blythe Bernhard | Post-Dispatch | April 29, 2026
Remote-controlled robots the size of lunchboxes rolled across the cafeteria floor at Gateway Science Academy, picking up cups and stacking them in a corner.
Students cheered as their robots built the stacks and jeered when they knocked them over at Monday’s practice for the VEX Robotics World Championship at America’s Center in downtown St. Louis this week.
“Our team is dedicated because we want to win the world championship,” said fifth grader Idris Gokgoz, 10.
Gateway Science Academy seventh grader Nergis Ozduman keeps track of time for her team as they move game pieces with their robot during a practice session for the 2026 VEX Robotics World Championship at Gateway Science Academy in St. Louis on Monday, April 27, 2026. “I like building friendship and teamwork, and competing with other teams,” Ozduman said.
The 10-day competition for thousands of students from elementary school through college moved to St. Louis for 2026 and 2027, after five years in Dallas. As many as 15,000 people daily are expected to attend, generating more than $32 million in economic impact for the region, according to tourism group Explore St. Louis. The teams, which qualified through preliminary contests, come from nearly every state and about 60 countries.
The competition lasts through Thursday and consists of several rounds of events, from robot building, coding and driving to robot skills like cup stacking and games in which a robot picks up a ball and places it in a tubular “goal.” Teams are scored on their creativity and precision during the events.
Other local qualifiers include North Kirkwood Middle School and Westchester Elementary from Kirkwood, the all-girls Engineering Barbies from Troy, Missouri and two teams from local 4-H clubs.
Gateway Science’s four charter schools boast 100 students in the after-school robotics club, with six teams qualifying for this week’s tournament. They practiced up to 25 hours a week leading to the final competition.
It’s not just about the competition, though.
The club opened its practice space to other competitors visiting from Texas and Florida, as well as Australia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Libya and the United Kingdom.
Royal Gasimov, Gateway Science’s robotics coach, put out a call in a coaches’ Facebook group for teams interested in a scrimmage while they were in St. Louis and quickly fielded requests from around the world.
“We wanted to invite teams from other states and countries,” Gasimov said. “It helps students get used to playing with other teams, especially teams they’ve never played before.”
The local and international students practiced robot skills at the school in the Northampton neighborhood for five hours Monday. The skills event requires the student-programmed robot to pick up and stack colored plastic cups and deliver them to “goals” in the corners of the practice box within a minute.
Success was expressed in the universal language of cheers and fist pumps.
“What really excites me is, we complain about kids being on the computer. So, we shifted their talent into something real,” said Engin Blackstone, superintendent of Gateway Science Academy. “That robot is something they built. I consider myself a tech-savvy guy, but their skill, their ability impresses me. It gives me hope. We are equipping them with 21st century skills.”
Atticus Luther, a ninth grader who was on the school’s world champion team in 2022, said anyone can learn robotics.
“It seems complex, but you just need to learn a few things,” the 14-year-old said. “You also learn from other teams. They want to share the designs and help everyone.”
Atticus said he plans to pursue a degree and career in nuclear engineering, building on the skills he has learned through robotics.
“If you do math, of course it’s related to engineering, but you don’t see the impact,” he said. “In robotics, you’re learning new things, mechanisms that will really help you on the path to engineering.”
