LAUSD Robotics League Wraps 2025-26 Season with New Milestones

Since 2021, i.am Angel Foundation has been a proud partner of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) making FIRST Robotics teams accessible to thousands of public school students. This school year (2025-2026), 63 teams competed in tournaments across the district, with the top 24 teams advancing to the LAUSD Championship held at Roosevelt High School on March 7th.

The theme of this year’s FIRST Tech Challenge game was DECODE™ presented by RTX, featuring an archaeology theme focused on uncovering, decoding, and preserving artifacts and innovations. From kickoff to the last match, students spent months designing, building, programming, and fine-tuning their robots.

This year saw important milestones for the LAUSD League:

• A total of 63 teams successfully competed at a tournament, a steady growth over last year’s number of 57 teams.
• Region East saw the most growth, hosting 23 teams at its Qualifying Tournament, more than at any other previous tournament.
• In response to this growth, LAUSD increased the number of teams invited to the Championship from 20 to 24 teams, to give more top teams a chance to compete for the league’s biggest awards.

Perhaps the most exciting milestone of all, for the first time in the history of the league, LAUSD recognized 3 finalists for the FIRST Student Leadership Award, which honors the dedication and contributions of outstanding students who excel in areas such as leadership, entrepreneurship, and dedication to advancing the mission of FIRST Robotics within their communities. The three student finalists were Samantha Fregoso from the International Studies Learning Center, Micah Johnson from Valley Academy of Arts and Sciences, and Andy Medina from Verdugo Hills High School.

Every year, two teams from the LAUSD League get to advance to the FIRST World Championship in Houston, Texas, where they will compete alongside top teams from across the globe.

The two LAUSD league teams advancing this year are:

•  Team 20625 — SOCES Knights from Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies

•  Team 20506 — The Technobots from Foshay Learning Center

These two teams represent the best of what LAUSD students can achieve, and they carry with them the hopes, hard work, and pride of every student who competed this season! We look forward to seeing how they do at the World Championships in Houston, which takes place April 29-May 2.

The i.am Angel Foundation is proud to support such an incredible program that continues to impact the lives of thousands of students in the Los Angeles community, and look forward to reaching new milestones in the years ahead.

Be sure to watch our video recap of the season above, and hear from students, teachers and administrators on how robotics has inspired them.