Automation Nation wins Engineering Inspiration Award

Renee Ruiz

Posted on - April 26, 2026

Automation Nation, Team 2960, has had an amazing season. This year’s game is brutal, and our robot Carl has taken some serious hits. But Carl is a well-engineered machine and the judges at our second qualifier recognized our engineering prowess, process, and outreach and rewarded the team with the Engineering Inspiration Award. This is a prestigious award and is given to a team who makes above and beyond efforts to share and teach the love and knowledge of engineering in the community where they live and work. This award helped us earn enough points to qualify for the State Championship where we performed well enough to make it to the playoffs. We also won this award, in part because of our efforts at our second qualifier to help the other teams at our competition. Two of the core values of FIRST Robotics is Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition. To fit the category of Gracious Professionalism, students must exhibit good sportsmanship, humility, and empathy. Students on Automation Nation excel at being Graciously Professional. Coopertition is a combination of Cooperation and Competition. This value is so deeply rooted in this sport that if any team has technical difficulties, you can count on at least five other teams to come to the rescue. Robotics is a ‘leave no robot behind’ type of sport. Every student will do everything in their power to make sure their competition can get their robot to the field to compete.

While we didn’t win States this year, we walked away with an award for Excellence in Engineering at the State Championship and have qualified for the World Championship. The team will be headed to Houston, Texas at the end of April to put Carl through his paces. Wish us luck!!