STM’s MORE Robotics Makes History with Top Finish at World Championship

5/5/2026

STM students finish among top 1% of global robotics teams.

Media Contact: Jim McLaughlin
Sr. Director of Development 
Email: mclaughlinj@tmore.org  
Phone: 414-481-8370 x119 

For Immediate Release

STM’s MORE Robotics Makes History at World Tournament

Team places fourth at FIRST Championship in Houston

MILWAUKEE, MAY 5, 2026 – St. Thomas More High School’s MORE Robotics team achieved a historic milestone over the weekend, finishing among the top 1% of teams globally at the FIRST Championship event in Houston.

FIRST, an international nonprofit promoting robotics and engineering to K-12 students through team-based challenges, holds the annual robotics competition event in which 600 teams form three-team alliances (sometimes with a fourth team) to face off against other alliances from across the globe. This year marked STM’s 14th time qualifying at the world level since the robotics team’s founding in 2006, but this time, they advanced further than ever before, winning their division and taking fourth place overall with their alliance in the top-tier Einstein Tournament.

MORE Robotics is now one of just four existing Wisconsin FIRST teams to have ever advanced to the Einstein Tournament. With these latest results, the majority-female STM team performs among the top 16 teams on the planet.

“This is an incredible achievement for our students and our program,” said Jim Fleming, a team mentor for MORE Robotics. “They demonstrated resilience, teamwork, and technical skill at the highest level of competition.”

A Winning Strategy

FIRST issues a challenge to its member teams each January to design, build, and strategize the operation of a robot in a designated task. This year, teams were charged with building a robot weighing under 115 pounds that could collect small balls and throw or dump them into a hopper for points like basketball, while maneuvering course obstacles and opponents’ robots. Some portions of the competition must be performed autonomously, meaning the robot must temporarily operate without a human controlling it.

Competitors form alliances at each event, encouraging teams to leverage others’ design strengths and skills for maximum advantage. STM’s robot, “Steel,” was engineered to be able to navigate both the hills and low-clearance trenches of the course in order to collect balls from enemy territory and deliver them to their allies. The design proved effective, disrupting enemy mobility and funneling ammunition away from opponents’ reach and over to their allies’ bots.

Wisconsin’s Growing STEM Talent

This year also marked a solid showing for the state overall. Of the 12 Wisconsin teams that qualified for the world tournament, half of them advanced to playoffs, with two serving as alliance captains — showing the growing strength of robotics programs across the state.

It’s a signal that there’s a healthy and growing STEM talent pipeline in Wisconsin, Fleming said, and demonstrates the great value in investing in STEM promotion at the competitive level. “This experience showed our students what STEM is really about — problem-solving, teamwork, and supporting one another,” he said, emphasizing the hands-on skills the program builds. “Every kid in our robotics program can operate all the power tools in our shop. The adults are the ones holding the flashlight.”

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The MORE Robotics team is 17 students strong, mostly female, and spans from brand-new freshmen to experienced seniors. It regularly competes and wins against local schools with triple its enrollment — and budget.

The equipment and tools needed to provide this hands-on experience have high price tags, and when the team has a successful season and qualifies for the world tournament, it must suddenly raise upwards of $30,000 to send the team and the delicate robot to Houston for a week in order to showcase their talent on the world stage.

In addition to hundreds of volunteer hours from adults, many of whom work in the engineering field themselves, the team’s success is made possible through the generosity of sponsors, donors, and philanthropic organizations who see the value that competitive robotics has for budding engineers.

“We are incredibly grateful to everyone who supports this program,” said fundraising volunteer and professional engineer Marcia Silva. “Forming new generations of engineers and scientists is so important, and this experience shows what’s possible.”

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About St. Thomas More High School

St. Thomas More is a Catholic, coeducational high school that inspires students to embrace the values of our patron saint by becoming men and women for all seasons. Rooted in Christ and the Catholic tradition, the school community embodies the principles of Christian discipleship, service to others, and academic excellence.

About FIRST®
FIRST® is a robotics community that prepares young people for the future. FIRST provides life-changing, team-based K-12 robotics programs that give young people the skills, confidence, and resilience to build a better world. Boosted by a global support system of volunteers, educators, donors, and sponsors, teams operate under a signature set of FIRST Core Values to conduct research, fundraise, design, build, and showcase their achievements during annual challenges.

An international not-for-profit organization founded in 1989, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) has a proven impact  on STEM learning, interest, and skill-building well beyond high school. Participants and alumni of FIRST programs gain access to education and career discovery opportunities, connections to exclusive scholarships and employers, and a place in the FIRST community for life. Learn more at firstinspires.org.

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