robot During their first major tournament, one of three robotics teams from Warren High School in Downey has won top honors at a Las Vegas tournament and qualified for the world tournament.

Warren’s Columbia 1 Team captured the Nevada Winter Championships on Dec. 3 and earned entry to the VEX Robotics High School World Championship in Anaheim in April.

“(Warren High School engineering teacher Glenn) Yamasaki and those students just killed it,” said Roger Brossmer, assistant superintendent at Downey Unified School District in charge of teachers—and as of this week, Downey’s mayor.
“It was one of those things where you have a good teacher with good students, so you just give them what they need and get out of their way. Our guys dominated.”

Columbia 1 was so dominating that it was three wins away from sweeping the tournament of about 25 teams. It might have won every match—if a teammate’s battery hadn’t died during one phase of the competition.
“I was stoked,” said Yamasaki. “Really, it was our first big competition.”

The other two Warren teams also won major honors.

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