In 2024, two Zebra Robotics teams traveled to Puerto Rico to compete at WRO Americas, the regional championship bringing together top teams from across North, Central, and South America — and both delivered the kind of nail-biting, lead-trading performance that makes robotics competitions so compelling to watch.
AR24 — Anvi Gupta and Rajas Salunke — punched their ticket to Puerto Rico after finishing third at Canada Nationals. Once there, they came out firing: the team finished Day 1 in first place, putting themselves squarely in podium contention. Day 2 proved tougher, and the team ultimately settled into 4th place overall — a strong, competitive finish against a regional field stacked with talent.
Stunky Monkeys — Reyaansh Desai and Rishy Grewal — followed a near-identical path to get there, also qualifying for WRO Americas with a third-place finish at Nationals. Like their teammates, they led the field after Day 1. Their Day 2, though, came with a hard lesson: a single careless mistake cost them full points on a run that, by all accounts, would have been enough to push them to the top of the podium. They finished 4th overall — heartbreakingly close to where the scoreboard suggested they belonged.
Two teams, two nearly identical arcs — strong qualification, a Day 1 lead, and a Day 2 that didn’t go quite to plan. But finishing 4th at a regional final, twice over, is no small accomplishment. If anything, both results point to exactly the kind of teams Zebra Robotics is building: ones that compete to win, not just to participate.