East Tennessee teens to compete in a world championship, a first for the school

WHITE PINE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Lakeway Christian Academy in White Pine has not one, not two, but three “Roaring Robotics” teams headed to the Vex Robotics World Championship competition in May.

Two middle school teams, who competed against each other in the state competition earlier this month, both earned the right of passage to worlds. The high school team will also go to worlds because of how well they performed in the skills part of the state competition.

“It’s really fun. I truly enjoy it,” ninth-grade student and robotics team member, Benton Gibson, said. “I am thankful that I can come to a school like this and just work with my hands and work with my friends to be able to construct this robot, and figure out problems and just solve whatever comes our way.”

The teens came a long way, thanks to their coach Jeff Hubbard. He said the students were shy about working with the programing and building the robots at first.

“It just brings a sparkle to my eye to be able to perform like they have,” Hubbard said.

Eighth-grade student, Maddox Atkins, has loved playing with L:egos and robots his whole life. He was the robot driver for the middle school team who won the state competition in March advancing them to Worlds.

“That was the goal that my team and we set at the beginning of the year. We wanted to make it to worlds. And now that we’re accomplishing that, is just amazing,” Atkins explained.

The teens meet and work after school. They will compete against more than 20,000 students in early May at the competition in Dallas, Texas.

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