Winning SA robotics team opens up about FTC World Championships in Texas

Pippa Hudson speaks with Ethan Buckle,17-year-old team design lead and Matthew Greenwood, 15-year-old media and game strategy lead.

Listen to the interview in the audio below.

The South African Champion High School Robotics team called Texpand made the country proud when they became world robotics champions.

Texpand is a Cape Town community robotics team with members aged between 14 and 17.

They have recently returned from the in Houston Texas where they had to design, build, and code robots to compete against other teams.

The teams competed in rotating alliances across multiple days of gameplay to advance to playoffs.

“The best teams choose their alliances… we were chosen and we are hoping if we go again we will be choosing who we compete with.”

- Ethan Buckle, Texpand design lead

The team was founded by Buckle, who was the only one with prior robotics knowledge.

He says the team started with just his group of friends and expanded to a team with members from all around Cape Town.

Greenwood says that it was intimidating to be competing against teams he has admired for as long as he has been involved in robotics, but it was incredible to come back as winners.

“It is pretty surreal. I never dreamed we would manage to come back champions.”

- Matthew Greenwood, Texpand media and game strategy lead

Raising funds for the competition was a challenge, he says, as they had to buy all materials from America.

Despite a shorter prep time and a smaller budget, the team showed the world what they are made of.

“I think it will shape all of our careers.”

- Ethan Buckle, Texpand design lead

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the interview.