On September 6, the FIRST Robotics organization revealed the 2025-2026 challenge here at FHN. Many teams from the Saint Louis area gathered in the auditorium to watch the season reveal.
“I hope it’s going to be a shooting game because then it will be a lot of fun,” Tong Zhou, an 8th grader at Rockwood Valley Middle said.
After the reveal, students were able to go on stage and interact with the game elements so they could understand what they need to accomplish to succeed in this year’s challenge.
“After watching the reveal, I can tell that we’re going to have to think outside the box, but I think we can do it,” Esther Lin, a senior at North said.
Students had mixed reactions about the game this year. Many believe that this year’s challenge won’t be as difficult as the previous year’s challenges. However, this year teams will get a headstart which will make things a lot easier.
“It looks like the starter robots are going to help us succeed more, because we don’t need to make a whole shooting system,” Blake Otte, a sophomore at North said.
Most people who attended the reveal believe that this season is very different from last year’s season in a lot of ways, such as the game elements, the game pieces and how they’re going to approach the challenges.
“I feel that the season is going to challenge the builders and programmers,” Michael Green, the robotics sponsor for North said. “It’s different that you’re not able to expand the size of your robot this year until the endgame. But you’re still shooting balls into a hoop that is more than twice the height ofthe robot. Students are definitely gonna have to think outside the box.”
