State Champs! Cranbrook Schools Robotics Teams Achieve Historic Victory at Michigan High School State Championship.

Cranbrook Schools' robotics program reached a major milestone this past weekend as one of its VEX Robotics Competition teams claimed the High School State Championship title.

Ten Cranbrook teams competed in the prestigious event.

While Cranbrook teams have frequently advanced to semifinalist and finalist rounds over the past decade, this year marked the first time a CK team secured the state championship crown.

The championship came down to an intense 2v2 grand final match featuring an all-Cranbrook showdown. Team 39Y, allied with a partner, defeated two fellow Cranbrook squads—Team 39H and Team 39Z—to claim victory. Out of the 80 top teams statewide, three of the four finalists in the grand final were from Cranbrook, highlighting the extraordinary depth and talent within the program this season.

Team 39Y dominated the competition, earning multiple top honors: they were crowned Robot Skills Champions, State Tournament Champions, and recipients of the prestigious Excellence Award, which recognizes overall program achievement, engineering, and impact.

Adding to the success, Team 39H earned the Amaze Award for demonstrating a consistently high-performing competitive robot throughout the event.

Cranbrook Schools proudly congratulates the award-winning teams, particularly Team 39Y members: Abby Nguyen, Mandy Chen, Eric Jiang, Alina Yuan, Roshni Senthil, and Qiqi Chen. Their remarkable triple crown of awards—Robot Skills, State Tournament Championship, and Excellence—caps an outstanding performance.

These teams have now qualified for the V5 High School World Championship in St. Louis Missouri this year.  A fourth team, 39R (Edward Chang, Brian Chang, Faith Nguyen, Kathik Nerusu, Kingsley Li, and Harrison Pai) also qualified for the World Championship by being ranked high enough on the State Championship skills list to earn one of the extra qualification spots created by the double qualification of Team 39H and the triple qualification of Team 39Y.

Congratulations to all our very hard-working robotics teams and faculty coaches and GOOD LUCK in the upcoming U.S. Open National Championships in Iowa in March and the World Championships in St. Louis in April.