By Anne DeVries
For the second consecutive year, St. Michael’s Prep hosted the Advanced Vertical Robotics (AVR) Statewide Drone Competition on November 7-8. This exciting event brought together talented high school teams from across Texas to showcase their skills in programming and piloting coordinated drones in real-world simulations.
The competition challenges students to blend automation with hands-on flying, preparing them for future careers in engineering, technology, and robotics. Teams must program drones to make split-second decisions while guiding multiple aircraft to undertake complex missions that assist on-ground mechanical rovers in completing a pre-assigned task. Successful completion of the challenge requires creativity, technical programming skills, and teamwork.
The St. Michael’s Prep team, the Falcon Fighters, is made up of students from the school’s Robotics and Design class, the LightSaders club, and the Upper School Competitive Robotics program. Building on a strong foundation from middle school engineering and science courses, these upper school students continue to push boundaries with innovative CAD designs, creative builds, and cutting-edge programming.
“Preparing for the competition was all-consuming,” Chris McGlathery, a junior and Falcon Fighter team member, shared. “But our team was ready and confident that we would complete the assigned mission under the stress of a competitive environment.”
Months of intense preparation paid off for the Falcon Fighters. Using artificial intelligence, augmented reality headsets, and countless hours of preparatory simulations, the student engineers and programmers trained their drones and rovers to react in real time while sharpening their own piloting skills. The team turned in an outstanding performance over the two-day event.
Day 1: 1st Place Design Award and 2nd Place Overall—qualifying the Falcon Fighters for the national level once again, to be held on December 5th in Dallas.
Day 2: 3rd Place Overall and 1st Place Presentation Award.
Congratulations to the St. Michael’s Prep Falcon Fighters on another remarkable showing, now with back-to-back national-level recognitions. These dedicated students represent the bright, ambitious future of a St. Michael’s Prep education in engineering, robotics, and advanced technology.
St. Michael’s Prep is Central Texas' only independent, Catholic PreK3–12th-grade school. To learn more, visit smcprep.org.
