Education
Two County High Schools Advance to State Robotics Final
Northside and Kettleman Valley placed first and third at regionals last weekend, sending both to Sacramento in October — the first time the county has qualified two teams in the same year.
Two Riverside County high schools will compete in the state robotics championship in Sacramento this October after finishing first and third at the regional round in Fresno on Saturday.
Northside High's team went undefeated across six matches, and Kettleman Valley advanced from the wild-card bracket after a tie-break decided on cycle time. It is the first year the county has sent two teams to the state final.
This season's task required machines to sort and stack irregularly shaped blocks under a two-minute limit, with a bonus for autonomous operation in the opening thirty seconds. Northside's entry completed the autonomous phase in all six matches, which the team's captain, seventeen-year-old Ruth Kasprzak, said was where the round was decided.
"Everybody's machine works when a person is driving it," Kasprzak said. "The first thirty seconds is the whole competition. We spent about four months on thirty seconds."
Both programs run as after-school clubs. Northside's is in its ninth year; Kettleman Valley's was founded in 2024 with a grant from a regional manufacturers' association and competed for the first time last season, finishing eleventh.
Kettleman Valley's faculty adviser, Dean Ottoline, said the team built this year's chassis from parts salvaged off last year's machine. "We are not the best-funded team in that room," he said. "We are not close. It turns out that matters less than the hours."
The state final is scheduled for October 17 and 18. Both schools are fundraising for travel; the district covers registration but not lodging.
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