Dexter’s Dreadbots Power Through State and World Championships

Dexter High’s Dreadbots had their best robotics season yet, reaching the World Championships and placing in the top 10%. Read about their inspiring journey.

By the Dreadbot Reporting Team

Dexter’s 47 talented and hard-working robotics students had a blast at both their state and world competitions. 2025 was arguably the most successful season for Dexter High School’s FIRST® Robotics team 3656, the Dreadbots, in their 13-year history. 

All of Dexter’s 10 sub-teams (half technical, half non-technical) delivered dominant performances in both of their two regional events, allowing the team to place first in qualifying with an overall win at Milford, and first place in qualifying with elimination in semi-finals at Jackson. In addition to their on-field performance, the team also earned ranking points with an award for “Innovation in Controls” at both events.  These results qualified the Dreadbots for a highly coveted invitation to Michigan’s hyper-competitive state championship event. 

Held at Saginaw Valley State University, 160 of the toughest teams in the state competed in four divisions over three days in hundreds of qualifying and finals matches.  Starting off strong, the Dreadbots held 1st place briefly, eventually qualifying 5th out of the 40 teams in their division. While Dexter did not win their division, their strong performance at this event ranked the Dreadbots 25th out of 526 teams (within the top 5% in Michigan). This placement was high enough to garner an invitation to the 2025 FIRST World Championship, held in Houston, Texas, on April 17-19.

After learning that they had qualified for Worlds, the Dreadbots immediately dove back into making final adjustments and repairs to their battle-worn robot to prepare it for more hard-fought matches. While their robot had been very robust and suffered almost no on-field failures, the team was determined to check everything to make sure their advantage continued during spirited competition with friends, new and old, from across the USA and the world.

This year, 600 high-school teams (in 8 divisions) from Asia to Mexico competed to climb the ranks and become the world champions. Other local Michigan teams that qualified for worlds included Dexter’s friends from Chelsea and from Ann Arbor Skyline and Pioneer – all teams that the Dreadbots have collaborated and competed with regularly over many seasons.  In addition to the high school teams, 455 top teams from younger divisions of the FIRST® program, including Lego League (K-6) and Tech Challenge (7-8), also attended the Championship.  Dexter team members enjoyed the opportunity to meet students from across the competition, as well as the chance to visit with college, governmental and corporate recruiters, all eager to get to know the talented students at this event.

The Dreadbots were very competitive on the field at Worlds, qualifying 13^th out of the 75 teams in their division before being eliminated in semi-finals. The Dreadbots’ team members had designed and built an exceedingly reliable and sturdy machine, and then operated it all season using skill and strategy to compete toe-to-toe with the best in the world. They won 75% of all their matches and never failed to finish a match. When all the scores were tallied, the Dreadbots’ final ranking was easily within the top 10% of the teams competing at the world championship in 2025.

The Dreadbots’ success this year was influenced by a multitude of factors, including some aspects that are not immediately obvious. For every qualifying match at a competition (80 for states and 125 for worlds), there were six Dreadbots students in the stands, each scouting and collecting data for one of the six robots currently competing. “We use scouting data … to influence our decision on alliance selection, and choose the robots we want to complement [our team] the best,” explains Cory Schimelfening, a 2nd-year Dreadbot on the Strategy subteam. With the help of the strategy team, the Dreadbots were able to select highly compatible and capable teams for their alliances, greatly assisting their path through finals in both the state and world competitions.

While the team boasts a large collection of skilled adult mentors who are constantly involved (mostly parents of now-graduated team members), the Dreadbots are distinctly a student-led organization.  The organizational structure is not simple, and student leadership positions are taken seriously by all.  The mentors are available for support, advice and continuity, but the students decide virtually every aspect of their season, a team feature appreciated by the students.  Said Corey Schimelfening (Service and Outreach lead):  “We need a balance between mentor guidance and student guidance.  We appreciate having high-level mentor oversight to keep us on the best track, but the primary focus should be on student control of the overall vision of the team. We’d like our mentors to be a reservoir of knowledge that we can tap when appropriate.” 

Dedicated sub-teams develop the team strategy, which guides the robot design (mechanical, electrical and programming).  After frantic early-season prototyping, the entire team votes on which design elements to develop.  Darren Cronstrom (Computer Aided Design & Manufacturing Lead) said, “Despite the possibility of the Dreadbots being less competitive, I still feel the importance of us learning from making our own mistakes outweighs the negative of potentially not making it to Worlds next season.”  Added Ella Walsh (Special Ops, co-lead) “To see our ideas develop into the super competitive robot our team fielded this year gave me, as a freshman, a real confidence boost… I think that the Dreadbots student leadership already does a really good job at having the students do most of the work, with some mentor oversight. It’s less important to win every competition than it is for us to feel like we have real ownership of how we designed and built our robot. It’s a balance.”

The contributions of Dexter’s schools to the robotics team’s success were likewise significant in 2025.  Among other things, Dexter purchased robotic machine tools (CNC routers), which were used by the Dreadbots to fabricate custom-designed parts for the first time this season.  These proved to be game changing this year for the mechanical sub-team as the robot could be modified and improved rapidly and with previously unattainable precision. Dexter provides access to rooms at Bates school for build and meeting space, as well as storage space and gym access during competition season for practice.  Dexter also helped defray registration fees once the team qualified for the world championship, which allowed more students to attend the event in Houston. 

The team recently concluded their competition season with a team meeting in which they held leadership elections, and discussed team philosophy as well as items they would like to continue doing, or to improve for next year.  After this meeting, the Dreadbots had a bonus event consisting of the first ever Dreadbot Alumni meeting.  23 alumni who graduated from 2012 to 2024 attended, some traveling in for the event from as far away as California and New Hampshire to share their stories with the current team members.  Common themes included how useful they found their robotics experience in college and their careers.  Many alumni also encouraged current students to strongly consider attending Washtenaw Community College and to investigate the transfer programs to 4-year colleges.

Robotics competitions are an ocean of activity and cooperation.  Teams are always willing to lend a helping hand with anything from fixing robots to loaning tools to other teams.  It is small acts like these which serve as the foundation for a great competition, what every robotics student recognizes as the concept of “Coopertition.”  Everyone may be competing against each other, but they all share the same passion for robotics and ultimately the same goal of having fun. “I would recommend Robotics… because it’s great experience in STEM fields… [the students] get to use various creative parts of their brain… [and] they get to work with their hands more” comments Will Reed, an avid fourth year electrical member. If you’re in K-12, you can join in on the fun! Contact the Dreadbots at outreach@dexterdreadbots.org and consider joining Dexter’s wider DROID team that believes in “Building People by Building Robots!”