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AFCEA Supports High School Robotics Teams

The Educational Foundation donated $10,000 to fund two teams’ trips to the 2025 FTC World Championship.

Robotics teams from Ramstein High School and Kaiserslautern High School tour the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory during their trip to Houston, Texas, for the 2025 FTC World Championship.

To support youth robotics, AFCEA International’s Kaiserslautern Chapter allocated $5,000 to both Ramstein High School and Kaiserslautern High School, contributing a total of $10,000 to help fund the schools’ robotics teams’ trip to the 2025 FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) World Championship in Houston, Texas. This year, AFCEA’s Educational Foundation matched the chapter’s donation, giving each school $5,000.

The FTC World Championship, which took place April 16-19, brought 232 youth robotics teams from around the world to Houston for a week of competition. This year’s theme was “Into the Deep,” so the student engineers had to design a robot with features that would help it explore the depths of the ocean.

Alfredo Rios, the coach of Ramstein High School’s robotics team, explained that his students won the local FTC regional competition, where they partnered with Kaiserslautern High School’s team and won the entire tournament, the Team Captain Alliance Championship and the Inspire Award. With two tickets to the world championship earned, Ramstein High School gave the other ticket to the Kaiserslautern High School’s robotics team, coached by Doug Smith.

The student engineers spent the first day mingling with other teams, learning new ways to code their robots. During the competition, the teams were paired with others to form alliances and understand how each team could combine their strengths to win matches.

In between matches, the students discussed strategy and made modifications to their robots before going up against three other teams on the playing field.

“Throughout the week, the team met every challenge and solved every problem that came our way,” Smith said. “Though we competed in different divisions, the Kaiserslautern and Ramstein teams supported each other and worked together.”

Rios said his team was in the Franklin division and left the competition with three wins. His hope is to eventually acquire sponsors that would help fund more advanced robot equipment for his students to help them excel even more at competitions. Some teams are sponsored by major companies, but Ramstein High School’s team is a Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) team, and therefore, not currently allowed to obtain sponsors.

“Whether it be the robot malfunctioning, the coding coming up with an error, servers and motors losing power, or simply, time, these kids persevered on a daily basis and learned how to operate under tremendous pressure all the while with a great attitude,” Rios said. “The maturity level these kids gain is absolutely outstanding, and I am proud of each and every one of them with the way they act day in and day out, in and out of the robotics field.”

While in Houston, the two high school teams also got to experience a tour of the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory and a Houston Astros baseball game. Both coaches said their students had a great time making friends and learning new robotics strategies for next year’s competitions.