FORT WORTH, Texas — A Fort Worth team is turning heads and winning titles in the high school robotics world, and they’re doing so while flying a unique flag: that of the U.S. military.

The Southwest High School Jr. ROTC robotics team ended the school year by winning the National Skills Match Championship at the VEX Robotics World competition. The team beat the former top team from Hawaii to take home the national title last month.

“We’re very proud of them,” said Lt. Col. George Vinzant, commanding officer for the Southwest High School JROTC. “They have really done an outstanding job of sitting back and letting people express their opinions; working through their designs and everything.”

The team, made up of about half a dozen students, only formed about four years ago when now-senior Mohammed Beghdadi and some friends decided to sign on and give competitive robotics a try.

“Our first year we knew nothing; we’d never competed,” said Beghdadi. “When we started learning, I remember building this robot [their first one] here and thinking it was the hardest thing ever.”

Beghdadi said his team worked alongside the high school’s main robotics team to get their footing in the competition, and they grew drastically throughout the pandemic as he and many of the other students passed the time of lockdown by honing their skills.

However, Beghdadi and many or his fellow teammates admit that — while they’d long had an interest in robotics, computers and engineering — the ROTC aspect was a little new for them.

“We just thought it was like a bunch of people who wanted to join the military,” said senior Shanta Stiles, who served as programmer for the team and wrote the coding for their robots.

But what the students found was that the military prep program has changed a lot.

“It’s quite a change,” said Lt. Col. Vinzant, who spent 33 years in the Marine Corps and Army. “That [his enlisting] was a long time ago, we did not even have computers.”

These days, though, Vinzant says the old ROTC stereotypes of marching in formations and running intense physical drills on the school’s lawn have taken a back seat to things like engineering training and the honing of leadership skills. 

In fact, Vinzant said STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) trainings have become central to their programs, as those are now the essential skills that the U.S. military are looking for in recruits. After all, modern defense is often much more served via computer and robotics skills than by physical strength.

So, a robotics team born out of a JROTC program is actually becoming a more common sight.

The students on the Southwest High team said their experience had certainly changed their view on the whole thing, and though some said they still weren’t sure the military would be in their future, others, such as Beghdadi, believe they have found a passion for it through their time on the team.

“I’m planning on going to the United States Navy,” said Beghdadi.

The team has also won several other robotics awards over the past year, including engineering, creative design and national innovation awards.