Confey College success at VEX Robotics World Championship 2026

By Mary Selkirk

Confey College Leixlip is proud to celebrate the outstanding achievement of its VEX Robotics team, The Imagineers, who represented Ireland at the VEX Robotics World Championship 2026 in St. Louis, USA. Team Imagineers consisted of Amal Rajesh, Chidubem (Dubby) Uzoukwu, Katie Evers, Sahas Sawant and Samiksha Muthukumaar. Mentored by past pupils- Anna Mei Chan Kinsella, Joel Rajesh and Ugochukwu Uzoukwu, the Imagineers and their mentors travelled to St Louis, Missouri on 18 April via Dallas, Texas for a week long robotic battle at the world championship. Using a Folding Ruiguan style robot, the team engineered a robot that competed in a series of mini games and challenges against other opponents.

VEX Robotics World Championship 2026

The VEX Robotics World Championship is widely regarded as the largest robotics competition in the world, bringing together top teams from across the globe to compete at the highest level of STEM excellence.

In the VEX V5 Robotics Competition, students designed, built and programmed their own robots, before competing in fast-paced matches that tested their game strategy, teamwork, and engineering and driving skills. Teams are also evaluated on innovation, documentation of work, and collaboration

In 2026, over 2,000 teams from around the world including over 800 teams in the V5 high school category took part in the event, making it an exceptionally competitive global stage.

The Imagineers entered the world championship following a clean sweep at national level, where they remained unbeaten and were crowned joint champions at the Irish National Final and secured the Robot Skills Irish National title.

On the world stage, they continued to impress, winning the prestigious Judges Award in their division, finishing as the highest ranked Irish team in the V5 competition and standing out as one of the very few European teams to receive a Judges Award in St Louis. The Judges Award is a prestigious recognition presented by competition judges to a team that stands out for special merit. Judges consider the team’s engineering notebook (documentation of their design process), their interview and communication skills, teamwork, problem-solving, perseverance, and overall spirit and conduct throughout the competition.

Unlike performance-based rankings, this award recognises the complete journey of a team—highlighting creativity, resilience, and excellence in engineering thinking. At a World Championship level, where only top teams qualify, receiving a Judges Award is a significant international honour. Each division at the World Championship typically features between 80 and 100 elite teams, making the level of competition exceptionally high. This is a major accomplishment, placing the team among the standout teams globally and marking a proud moment for Confey College and Irish STEM education.

Team Imagineers’ success is a testament not only to their own dedication but also to the support of their school and local community. Their achievement is expected to inspire younger students in Leixlip and beyond to engage with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The team express their gratitude to their school, their fellow schoolmates, the KWETB and to all of their sponsors including Intel, AMD, MGS, MIDAS, SUSQUEHANNA and ETHOS and to all who donated to make their journey possible, including Croi Laighean Credit Union, Celtic Tiles and Leixlip Amenities.

Confey College has been involved in Robotics and STEM since 2016 when the school took part in the European Space Agency’s CANSAT competition. The school won the CANSAT National final and came third in the European final in Portugal. This success was repeated in 2025 when Confey students again won the National CANSAT final and represented Ireland, presenting their project at the European Space Agency’s headquarters in Leiden.

On the heels of their CANSAT success in 2016, Confey students were invited to represent Ireland in the FIRST Global World Robotics competition in Washington DC in 2017. Since then, the school has contributed to Irish Robotics teams for nearly every year, with past students becoming mentors to new student teams. Team Ireland has also had great success in First Global that has over 185 countries taking part, most notably coming second in 2024 at the competition in Greece for their project focussed on replacing harmful chemical fertilizers with electro-farming and achieving eight place in Panama in 2025. Confey students have also had successes in the younger FIRST Lego league, representing Ireland and achieving third place in 2019.

These Confey VEX students only took part in VEX Robotics for the first time last year in 2025, teaching themselves the basics and, through hard work, perseverance and problem solving they secured for themselves a place in the 2025 World Final in Texas. This year, it is clear that these determined and dedicated students have built on their success and will go even further in the coming years. Following the school’s tradition, in addition to taking part again in 2027, some of the VEX students will also be mentoring a new VEX school team for the 2027 season. Also, to further encourage younger students in Confey College, Mr Dave Selkirk, Mr. Vincent Gordon (teacher) and Ms M Selkirk (teacher) have recently established a Robotics/ Electronics and Coding club open to all Junior students from 1st to 3rd year.

As Ireland continues to invest in STEM education, performances like this underscore the potential of its young innovators on the world stage. For the students of Confey College, the experience will no doubt serve as a springboard for future success in Engineering and Technology fields.

With their Judges Award in hand and a strong global ranking secured, Team Imagineers have firmly placed, and will continue to place, Leixlip on the International Robotics map.

See more breaking stories here.