Cal Poly San Luis Obispo had won the VEX Robotics state championship three years in a row. On March 1, 2025, Biola University's Robotics Club drove to their campus for the Gear Slingers Open.
By the end of the day, Biola had taken the Design Award, placed second in California in the Skills event, and earned an invitation to the 2025 VEX Robotics World Championships in Dallas. Cal Poly also qualified.
The Competition
The Gear Slingers Open is a VEX U regional tournament, the collegiate division of the VEX Robotics Competition and one of the largest student robotics programs in the world. It drew teams from across California, including California Baptist University, Mt. San Antonio College, and Cerritos College. The Skills ranking measures robots against a standard autonomous and driver-control course; Biola's second-place California finish and top-25 national ranking secured the World Championship bid. The team competed at the VEX Robotics World Championships in Dallas on May 9, 2025.
The Team
Eight students designed, built, and programmed the robots. Ryan Ong, a computer science major, served as captain and lead programmer. Jaran Mann, a robotics major, captained the driving side. J.T. Lam, an engineering physics major, handled mechanical design. Christian Meineke, Tyler Hill, Yile Lin, and Chris Gruytch brought engineering and computer science backgrounds. Ben Stewart, a cinema and media arts major, completed the roster.
The team is advised by Dr. Genti Buzi, Dr. Yohan Lee, and Dr. Grace Ni, and operates within Biola's School of Science, Technology and Health (SSTH).
What the Competition Showed
An engineer from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) who observed the team at the event said afterward: "Everything we do is autonomous at JPL, and it is clear your team had an edge with sophisticated Computer Science and AI."
What's Next
The 2025 World Championship qualification is one chapter in a longer arc for Biola's robotics program. In 2026, the university received its first humanoid robot, expanding student access to technology that reaches beyond competition platforms into industrial and research-grade hardware.
