Meet your “Porta-Botz!”. The history-making, 2026 State Champions, and 6 VEX World Robotics Championships Qualifying teams:

1.) High school students “MCJROTC” - Jordan, Lucas, and Mayan

2.) High school students “Maverick” - Aubree, Austin, Azariah, Matthew, and Wyatt

3.) High school students “Particle Effect” - Andrew, Brayden, Logan, Mikey, and Myron.

4.) Middle school students “Jelly Roll” - Brayden, Justin, and Sebastian.

5.) Middle school students “T-Flex Rex” - Dreyken, Jakob, and Xavier.

6.) Middle school students “Zoinks!” - Cooper, Jackson, Maddy, and Luke.

They’ve earned the privilege to represent Portage Indiana at the VEX World Robotics Championships in St. Louis, MO. April 21st through the 27th.

Since the beginning of this school-year, these talented and dedicated students have spent long hours after school and taken several red-eye bus rides to weekend tournaments with dreams of making it big! These 6 teams, along with their program teammates, produced 27 tournament trophies, 7 State berths, 7 National tournament invitations, and now 6 World’s qualifications. This is a historic year for the program. Outstanding!

In particular, The Porta-Botz! team “Maverick” was the 2026 Indiana State Champions. “Particle Effect” was 3rd at the U.S. Nationals winning their Division.

The Robotics Boosters Club, INC has been on a mission with several fundraising initiatives to send all 6 teams to Worlds. (Such success come with a hefty price tag.)

The Worlds registration per team is $1854. The 4-day event for Hotels and meals is another $2000 per team. This brings the cost of competing to $3854 per team, times 6 teams. Or, a whopping $23,124 challenge for these deserving kids.

With all the success, Booster funds are exhausted and these kids need your assistance to make their dream opportunity a reality. The “Go Fund Me Campaign” is the last step towards meeting their financial goal. Lasting just week this final push will get the kids over the top!

To reduce costs, the Robotics Booster Club has paid the $1864 per-team entry fee, or $11,124. Families are absorbing a chunk of the cost, too.

With your assistance, World dreams will come true! Any donation is not too small. All proceeds are a direct investment in kids as 100% of the funds generated here go directly to the students.

VEX Worlds is the largest Robotics Event in the World featuring thousands of robotic teams from 50+ countries. The rich, multicultural event is an opportunity of a lifetime and one that will make forever-memories.

Robotics is more than building, programming, and competing. Robotics develops skills for life including collaboration, communication, time management, planning, organization, creativity, problem-solving, persistence, and resiliency. That is why the program’s mission statement is “Changing Lives, One Robot at a Time!” Please help change the lives of teams “MCJROTC, Maverick, Particle Effect, Jelly Roll, TFlex Rex, and Zoinks!”

This fundraiser is hosted by the Robotics Boosters Club, Inc., committed to promoting Robotics and STEM education and financially supporting “The Porta-Botz!”.

A World Championships banner for the is being made to recognize all “Go Fund Me” donors. Please consider giving at your level of comfort. All are encouraged to “share” our campaign and help spread the word.

Thanks for your generous support! The “Porta-Botz!” hope to make you proud!

Visit The Robotics Teams @ The PortaBotz Facebook Page

Or, check out this PBS Porta-Botz! feature to Look inside the Portage VEX Robotics Robo Room