Aguascalientes students take top prizes at international robotics competition

Student teams from the north-central Mexican state of Aguascalientes earned three awards at an international robotics competition in Germany over the weekend.

The Aguascalientes team, nicknamed Lanceros Overclock, won the high school division (ages 14 to 20) of Robo Shuttle at ROBOchæmpions, held Saturday and Sunday in the city of Lörrach. 

Robo Shuttle is an event in which the budding scientists build and program autonomous robots to follow a marked course while transporting pingpong balls.

The team NexumAMG finished second in the same event and division, while the MagiBot squad took second in the middle school division (ages 11 to 14) of Robo Clash — in which team-built robots face off in a battle arena.

Competition rules required teams of two to four students.

Separately, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum honored students from Aguascalientes on Tuesday for an earlier victory in Japan, according to the state government.

In August, students from José Guadalupe Posada General Secondary School No. 6 won the FastBot Middle School division at the RoboRAVE world championship in Osaka.  Next year’s  RoboRAVE world championship is set for Houston.

Tuesday’s presidential recognition came during the National Meeting of Students in Science at the federal Education Ministry in Mexico City. The gathering recognized young people’s international achievements in science, mathematics, robotics and technology.

In Germany, Mexico’s winning teams represented three schools: Lanceros Overclock from the Lanceros de Aguascalientes state civic high school; NexumAMG from José Guadalupe Posada; and MagiBot from Magisterio Nacional Elementary School.

Overall, 16 students from Aguascalientes competed, but the names of the winners were not included in official results.

According to organizer Phaenovum — a student research center in Lörrach, Germany — the inaugural competition hosted teams from Mexico and Egypt in addition to regional competitors. It succeeded RoboRAVE Germany, a previous local version of RoboRAVE.

The organizer published results in five categories spanning races, robot duels, transport tasks and autonomous firefighting.

One challenge required robots to extinguish a candle flame autonomously.

Teams prepared and tested their robots Saturday before Sunday’s judging, awards ceremony and public demonstrations.

Aguascalientes students have also earned recognition elsewhere: José Guadalupe Posada students won two third-place awards at RoboRAVE in Silicon Valley in July 2025, while a Panamerican University team from the state finished sixth at RoboCup in Brazil that year with a search-and-rescue robot, according to the state government.