Hardwired for success: Yorkville High School robotics team has record-setting season

After a record-setting season, the Yorkville High School VEX Robotics program is doing some recalibrating entering the upcoming school year.

New head coach Brian Erjavec, a high school engineering teacher, is taking over the controls following the departure of head coach John Alanize.

The program competes in the FIRST Robotics Series and the VEX Robotics competition. Last season, the program set a school-record by sending four teams to the 2025 Illinois VEX State Championships, winning a lot of hardware along the way.

The program made more school history when it sent teams for the first time to the 2025 VEX Worlds Robotics Competition in Dallas in the spring. Two teams qualified to compete against the top 800 programs in the world.

While the upcoming season may prove challenging because many of last season’s highest performers graduated, Erjavec said hard work and dedication is hardwired into the program’s identity.

He hopes the perseverance of last year’s members inspires this year’s teams.

“They put in an amazing amount of time, the team that went the furthest had a challenging season before, and this was sort of their revenge tour,” Erjavec said. “They also fought back from a difficult beginning of the season, and all their effort building into the later season was rewarded with qualifying for Worlds. While we will be rebuilding in their absence, the team is excited and eager for the successes to come.”

What is a robotics competition?

The VEX Robotics teams compete in a set of games, designing robots to manipulate objects in a field following a complex rule system to win points against opponents.

Last year, the games were defensive-based, with teams earning points by winning control over different areas of the fields.

The games involve teamwork and analytical strategizing.

There’s also an autonomous portion of the games where teams must use their computer programming skills on the sensors built into their robots to move around the field and perform tasks without human intervention.

What does it take to be on the team?

“Success takes students with strong math skills and the ability to work together as a member of a group,” Erjavec said. “The games are very project based and group work focused. Their creativity, ingenuity, collaboration, communication and problem solving skills get a chance to shine at these competitions.”

Erjavec said one of the main appeals of joining the program is developing the skills it takes to have successful careers in the fields of robotics operations, computer programming, robotics engineering and AI-based jobs.

“Students gain experience on the physical aspect of programming and interacting with the physical environment,” Erjavec said. “They learn things like C ++ coding and python coding which are ubiquitous in the world of programming.”

He added that as AI begins to overlap with robotics, “these kids are going to have a lot of job opportunities as technicians, engineers and programmers, to help solve problems for things like manufacturing companies and consumer products.”

Erjavec said part of the attraction of joining the club is working closely with mentors and experts in STEM fields and building off of the materials explored in the students’ high school classes.

“Every skill that we learn has application to their lives as an adult,” Erjavec said. “We’re solving practical problems using physical solutions that you get to manipulate and build with.”

In addition to developing communication and team-building skills, the robotics club “provides many more skills that will guide you later in life. This is a foundation to understand how the world around you is working,” he said.

You can learn more about the program by visiting Yorkville 115 School District’s website, yhs.y115.org/parents/clubs-activities/robotics-club.