The Westport Middle School RoboHawks won their second-straight state championship earlier this month.
By Dyuce Woodson
March 27, 2023—When Nathan Sells was tasked with running the robotics program in 2019, he thought he was simply trying something new.
"When our robotics person left, I was like, okay, whatever, I'll try it," Sell said. "You know, I've always done video games and always messed with things of that nature. I thought, okay, I can do this."
Since then, the Westport Middle School RoboHawks have been successful.
In Sells’ classroom, there are three state championship banners, with the first one being from 2019.
“I had some sixth graders, and I thought we were going to have a great run of it, and then COVID happened for two years,” he said.
The abrupt stop eventually led to two years without the Westport RoboHawks coming together, but in 2022, the team reclaimed their state title and held on to the throne again in 2023.
Each of the last two times winning the state championship, the team qualified for the world championships.
“It's very rewarding,” Sells said. “It’s a testament to the kids that I got. A testament to the kids that I teach.”
Kids like seventh grader Hannah, who’s a programmer and in her first year on the team.
“It was kind of, looking around, noticing what the banners meant, what the trophies meant, and it was like, oh, this is a really good team,” Hannah said. “I’m going to be in a good group.”
The most exciting thing about this group is the fact that there are no eighth graders on this year’s team.
This year’s team might even be more enticed to come back because, even though they qualified for the world championships, Coach Sells says it’s not the best time for the team to go to world competition and compete.
He says that there’s still a lot of potential this team has and they haven’t quite gotten to the level needed to compete on the world stage.
Although the team won’t be able to compete this year, for now, the students are embracing being this year’s state champions.
“It feels really rewarding, honestly,” seventh grader and programmer Kayla said. “We had to start from the bottom; then we worked our way up. We're so very glad, and it feels nice.”