Led by a strong class of seniors, including Greenwood's Brady Bray, with some help from the underclassmen like Booneville's McKenzie Morris and Alma's Lukas Spain, Arkansas Tech University finished runner-up at the 2026 VEX U Robotics World Championship, held April 25-27 at the America’s Center Convention Complex.
The No. 2 finish in the world marks the latest milestone in the rapid rise of the ATU robotics program, which made its first appearance at the VEX U world championship in 2023. Since then, the program has emerged as one of the top collegiate robotics teams globally.
Arkansas Tech placed ahead of teams from major universities, including Arizona State, Purdue, Rutgers, Texas A&M, Florida, Louisville, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Carolina, and West Virginia. The Golden Suns also outperformed international competitors from Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom.
More than 120 colleges and universities qualified for the 2026 championship.
In addition to its runner-up finish, Arkansas Tech earned the 2026 VEX U Think Award, presented to the team demonstrating the most effective and consistent programming performance.
The senior class leading the effort included Jason Easterling, Brandon Gallegos, Juan Leon and Hunter Mathis of Hope, and Ryan Nanthalangsy of Sheridan, and Bray of Greenwood.
Other team members included juniors Preston Diehl, Bo Huey and Everett Otis of Conway; sophomores Kavin Kannangara and Brody Peterson of Bentonville, Judit Morales-Mora of Russellville and Cooper Stober of Bentonville; and freshmen Layke Bennett and Gavin Copeland of Cabot, Jhon Perez of Centerton, Morris of Booneville and Spain of Alma.
The team is coached by Jacob Weidenfeller, ATU senior instructor of electrical engineering, and Steve Ward, instructor of computer and information science.
Arkansas Tech launched its VEX U robotics program in fall 2019, drawing early members from its Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) student organization. The team quickly found success, earning an excellence award at a Little Rock qualifying event that same semester and qualifying for the 2020 world championship, which was later canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program made its world championship debut in 2023, advancing to the quarterfinal round of its division and finishing among the top 16 teams globally. Arkansas Tech followed that performance with a top-four global skills ranking in 2024 and a sixth-place finish in robotics skills competition in 2025.
Participation in the ATU robotics program is open to students of all majors.
This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: River Valley students help ATU to No. 2 in world robotics