A Wakefield High School senior is heading to the VEX Robotics World Championship for the second year in a row — and this time, he’s bringing an elementary school team with him.
Greyson Schroeher has spent the school year mentoring two Arlington robotics teams that both qualified for the World Championship in St. Louis later this month: his own Wakefield squad and a group of fourth and fifth graders from Glebe Elementary competing in their first season.
The Wakefield team, made up of Schroeher and four freshmen he mentored this year, earned a spot at Worlds after competing at the Virginia VEX Robotics State Championship on March 15.
The team received the “Create” award, which recognizes creative engineering design and innovative approaches to competition challenges, and their Skills Challenge score was high enough to qualify, according to Wakefield robotics coach Wendy Maitland. They compete in St. Louis from April 20-24.
The Glebe Elementary team, called Paragon 2.0, won the VEX IQ State Championship in Herndon as elementary-aged students competing in the middle school division. Team members Bradford Burlingame, 9, Brooks Hennessy, 10, James Pendergrass, 10, and Henry Bell, 9, are headed to the VEX IQ World Championship from April 28-30, according to a press release from the program.
The connection between the two programs started when Bradford began attending Wakefield’s Friday robotics meetings and developed an interest of his own, Maitland said. His father, Nathan Burlingame, asked Schroeher to mentor a team at Glebe Elementary, leading to the creation of Glebe Robotics, a first-year program with three competitive teams of students in third through fifth grade.
“What makes this group special isn’t just the result, it’s how they got there,” Schroeher said of the Glebe team. “They learned how to solve problems under pressure, work through setbacks, and trust each other as a team. Watching them grow from their first build to a state championship has been incredible.”
Schroeher led his own Wakefield team to VEX Worlds for the first time last year after helping revive the school’s robotics program as a freshman. That team, also called Paragon, qualified after a standout performance at an international tournament in Bristol, Tennessee.
With members of the 2025 squad now on to other pursuits, including studying engineering in college, the 2026 team besides Schroeher is all new. They’ll face top teams from around the world: from D.C. and McLean to as far away as China and New Zealand.
In the VEX IQ competition, students build a robot using snap-together parts to solve an engineering challenge presented each year as a game. Teams compete together in Teamwork Matches and individually in Robot Skills Challenges.
Glebe Robotics teams meet after school once per week and attend offsite build and practice sessions two to three additional times per week, according to the press release.
Both programs have been seeking sponsors to help cover the cost of travel to St. Louis. Those interested in supporting Glebe Robotics can contribute via a GoFundMe page or contact the program at [email protected]. Donations for the Wakefield team can be made through the Wakefield Education Foundation via the “Amazon Innovation Lab Fund” option.
