GSSM Robotics Teams Earn Top Honors at FTC Upstate Qualifier, Advance to State Championship
February 23, 2026
HARTSVILLE, S.C. (Feb. 23, 2026) ─ Robotics teams from the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science & Mathematics (GSSM) earned top honors at the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Upstate Qualifier, with Team Excalibur advancing to the state championships after receiving the event’s highest award.
Excalibur, Team 22972, captured the Inspire Award, the top honor presented at FTC competitions. The award recognizes overall excellence in robot design, performance, and community engagement.
With the win, Excalibur qualified for the South Carolina FTC State Championship, set for Feb. 27-28 in Columbia. The team stood out for the production quality of its robot, along with extensive testing and design iterations completed throughout the season.
“Every late night, redesign, and repair taught us something new, and winning the Inspire Award makes all of that hard work feel truly recognized,” said Ansh Dwivedi, of team Excalibur.
The Function Machine, Team 22534, earned the Think Award, the competition’s second-highest honor. The award recognizes excellence in engineering design and documentation. Their 15-page portfolio detailed its technical process and outreach efforts, which included connections with robotics communities in Australia, Romania, the United Kingdom and Vietnam, as well as support for GSSM STEM Days and library demonstrations across South Carolina.
“As a team of rookies, we are so honored to receive this award! After spending a year finding ourselves within robotics, we can say that FIRST is not only a community for us, but for everyone. We do this for the love of the game. Thank you to Dr. Parshall and everyone who supported us along the way this year,” said Kieran Hall of the Function Machine.
“I was pleased and surprised that Excalibur won the Inspire award,” said Dr. Elaine Parshall, GSSM robotics instructor. “I've been working with many of these students for the past year and a half, and it's exciting to see what they've accomplished. After using Bodnard's class robot for two scrimmages because their competition robot was not ready, they completed a working robot just before the qualifiers. It's been an ongoing conversation with these teams by how they define "working". They pursued a challenging custom metal-plate design, and their comprehensive design process was recognized by the judges. Support from Duke Energy and the GSSM Foundation has enabled three of our teams to build custom designs this year using our new laser CNC cutter, for which we are very thankful.”
GSSM students and recent graduates also represented approximately one-third of the event’s volunteers, supporting competition operations throughout the qualifier.
Results from the FTC Midlands Qualifier are expected this week as teams prepare for the state championships.
More information about GSSM’s robotics program is available at scgssm.org/robotics.