Blaze to Agni: A Programmer’s Path to the Robotics World Championship

Blaze to Agni: A Programmer’s Path to the Robotics World Championship

When I joined First Tech Challenge (FTC) by First Robotics this season (2024–25), I was a complete novice. Robotics wasn’t new to me, but this level of competition, the kind where strategy, hardware, software, and sheer perseverance had to blend perfectly, was something I had never experienced before. I didn’t know then that the next few months would teach me more than any classroom ever could.

As the lead programmer on my team, Mad Engineers, I had a huge responsibility on my shoulders. When the theme “Into the deep” was announced, I didn’t even know where to begin. I spent hours watching YouTube tutorials, reading GitHub repositories, and learning from FTC Discord forums and documentation.

Team Mad Engineers — Omotec

It was overwhelming at first, but slowly, things started to click. I started writing basic movement code, and then added layer after layer as I understood more. Every bug taught me something new, every test made me better. I didn’t just learn to code, I learned how to think like a programmer, to break down problems, to debug, and to document everything. There were nights I stayed up just trying to get one small function to work. But nothing beats the joy of watching something I had coded come to life on our robot.

Our first robot, Blaze, carried us through both the Central Asia First Championship (The Almaty Tech cup), held at Almaty, Kazakhstan and the India National championship at Pune, India. CAFC was our debut, and we made it to the division finals and won second place in the Think Award. We also won the award for international excellence. For our first ever FTC event, it was more than we could’ve hoped for.

Almaty Tech Cup 2025 at Almaty, Kazakhstan

But the India Nationals championship was where everything changed. We were named the winner of the Inspire Award, the highest honor in FTC, given to the team that stands out in every way, technical excellence, outreach, teamwork, and innovation. It was the moment we realized we had done something truly special. Each and every member of the team worked really hard to reach this stage, whether it be the outreach sessions we conducted at various schools motivating others to explore STEM, the full days and late nights we stayed to fine tune the bot, perfecting our pitch interviews and putting it all together in our engineering documentation!

India National Championship 2024–25 at Pune

Winning Inspire meant we were headed to Houston, to the World Championship, and we only had four weeks to prepare. Four weeks to reinvent everything. We decided to build a new robot from scratch and named it Agni. It was a risk, but one we were willing to take. While the rest of the team focused on hardware, I locked myself in the center for hours every day, working on the new code. I barely took breaks. I was determined to make sure the new robot functioned flawlessly. There were days when the center emptied out, and I was still there, typing, testing, and tuning.

And then came Houston. The FIRST Championship wasn’t just a competition, it was an experience I’ll never forget. With over 60,000 people in attendance, 256 FTC teams, and thousands more from FRC and FLL, it felt like the heart of the global robotics community. Everywhere I turned, there were people passionate about building, learning, and sharing. I talked to teams from all over the world, traded badges, ideas, and dreams. I saw what was possible when young minds are empowered to solve real problems.

First Tech Challenge World Championship 2024–25, Houston, US

Looking back, it’s incredible how far we came. From being absolute beginners to building two competitive robots and representing India on the world stage, all in one season. It wasn’t smooth. We failed, we stumbled, we doubted ourselves. But we never gave up. That’s why we’re called Mad Engineers. Because we don’t stop at limits, we question them, break them, and build something new in their place.

If you ask me, should I take up robotics or FTC as an activity to explore in high school, I have some thoughts:

• Robotics and especially FTC is very time consuming, so venture into it only if you have the genuine interest or passion and the time to spare.
• Think and choose your role in the team with care, there are so many ways in which you can contribute, but doing the role that you like takes your learning to the next level.
• Be ready to face defeats, FTC is just like another sport, so winning or losing, after all the effort that you put in, is very real!

For me, this journey wasn’t just about robotics. It was about growth, teamwork, perseverance, and the belief that even a beginner can do extraordinary things. I walked into FTC not knowing what to expect. I walked out knowing exactly who I want to become.