At the 2026 VEX Robotics World Championship, five students from Concordia International School Shanghai finished 3rd in the world in the VEX V5 Skills Challenge. The result marks a milestone for the school's robotics program and highlights the growing strength of Asian teams in global robotics competitions.
The competition
The VEX Robotics World Championship is the pinnacle of VEX competition. Each year, only about 6% of qualified high school VEX V5 teams worldwide earn a spot at Worlds. This year's event in St. Louis drew 1,200 teams from 30 countries. The Concordia team not only qualified but placed among the global top three.
How they got there
The team — Jessica J, John D, Ethan H, Mak T, and Yolanda L — spent months on disciplined engineering. They rebuilt, retested, coded, drove, broke parts, fixed them, and repeated the cycle. The pressure was higher than usual because they had also won the APAC Championship just weeks before Worlds, leaving little time to reset before St. Louis.
At Worlds, that work held up against some of the most experienced robotics programs in the world. For one stretch of the competition, Concordia sat at No. 1 in the world.
Beyond the leaderboard
Worlds also served as an opportunity to exchange ideas. In the pit aisles, Concordia students connected with teams from other schools, studying drive bases, intake systems, autonomous logic, and match strategy. They asked questions and shared their own insights.
The program behind the result
Behind this moment is a team of dedicated educators who have steadily built and supported Concordia's robotics program. From establishing a K–12 pathway to coaching through countless cycles of design, testing, and refinement, their work creates the conditions for students to thrive at the highest levels. This result is not just a win on the field, but a testament to the strength of the program and the people who make it possible.
Bottom line
Concordia's third-place finish in the VEX V5 Skills Challenge is a concrete achievement — months of engineering, testing, and iteration paid off against 1,200 teams from 30 countries. For teams aiming to reach Worlds, the takeaway is straightforward: disciplined rebuild-test-fix cycles and cross-team knowledge sharing are what separate top finishers from the rest.