A team of ten elementary students from Cobb County has won the state championship in the 2025-2026 FIRST LEGO League (FLL) Challenge, earning a place at the World Championship in Houston, Texas. The group, known as Brick Storm (FLL Team 71595), includes students from five different schools and was selected from more than 4,000 participants across Georgia.
The FLL Challenge is an international STEM program for young students. Brick Storm prepared under coaches Ms. Yuan Zhuang and Ms. Jane Yang, meeting regularly for three hours each Saturday and supplementing with Zoom sessions. Each student also spent time on individual research and study.
The Penguin Brothers Robotics Club in East Cobb organized the team. Many members had attended robotics summer camps or participated in other club activities. Their FLL work included researching archaeological sites, designing educational board games about archaeology, completing robot missions, and visiting museums.
Brick Storm’s achievements include winning the Robot Best Performance Award at Walton High School’s regional tournament on December 6, 2025, followed by both the Robot Best Performance Award and Champion’s Award at Wheeler High School’s super-regional event on January 17, 2026. These victories led them to the Georgia State Championship at Georgia Tech on February 7, where they were one of two teams to win a Champion’s 1st Place Award and qualify for the World Championship.
At Georgia Tech, Brick Storm received the Robot Performance 2nd Place Award along with their top overall award. They will represent Georgia at the FIRST LEGO League World Championship from April 29 to May 2 in Houston against teams from over sixty countries.
“This achievement is truly exceptional,” said Jianfeng Jiang, proud parent of East Side Elementary student Boyan Jiang. “We are incredibly proud of these young students and want to celebrate their dedication, teamwork, and success!”
Reflecting on his experience this season, Boyan Jiang said: “Being on the team changed my perspective on archaeology. I learned a lot about archaeology and the past. For my robot attachment, I changed it multiple times and added a rubber band to hold it together. I also designed the board for our board game, ‘ArchaeoQuest.’ Overall, this experience taught me that everything pays off in the end.”
Other team members shared their thoughts:
Alexander Sun (Mt. Bethel Elementary School): “At first, I didn’t like FLL because my team and I had to do mountains and mountains of work. We had to create and memorize scripts, code tremendously difficult codes, build efficient attachments, and make a complicated board game. That was not fun. But soon, after the first tournament, I noticed hard work paying off. After loads of more hard work, in the State Championships we won first place overall in tournament A. That is hard work paying off again.”
Carrie Chen (Mt. Bethel Elementary School): “The thing that was hard was the amount of homework we had. I came into the team because I had done the summer camp; it was really fun and my coach encouraged me to come. We had to research so much and it was hard to do while also trying to manage other things. When we went to our first competition we realized how all our hard work and time paid off. After that when we went to Super Regionals competition we felt way more confident and were able to win Super Regional Champion. Lastly when we went to state we weren’t expecting anything big but we won state champion! My experience showed me that if you work hard and put effort and time in you will succeed.”
Edward Tang (Mt. Bethel Elementary School): “At the beginning I did not like it. We had a pile of homework taller than Mt Everest but when we won the first tournament I started liking it…I learned that anything is possible if you work hard.”
Eric Jiang (Mt Bethel Elementary School): “I did not like the first few robotics practices…But after the first tournament I began to like FLL…In state we got 470 points and we won!!! All the hard work paid off.”
Krithik Tadimarri (Rocky Mount Elementary School): “I was inspired to join robotics because of my older sister…In this journey there are many people I want to thank for helping me reach world competition…Most of all I want to thank my coaches for guiding me helping me improve…”
Peter Alan Niculescu (Mt Bethel Elementary School): “This robotics season I learned that when you work with a team you have to be there for them even when it is stressful or does not match your schedule…Finally thanks to this project I got interested in designing board games.”
Rishaan Ranjan (Mt Bethel Elementary School): “…slowly I started to realize…We were ecstatic that we won Robot Performance Award but we weren’t done yet…We put in more hours of focus which got us first place at State…The whole journey brings new meaning to ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.'”
Additional members Ethan Zhou (Tritt Elementary) and Janie Luo (Sope Creek Elementary) contributed throughout as well.
East Side Elementary School supports its students through Title I programs aimed at helping those most at risk meet academic standards (official website). The school operates within Cobb County School District (official website) as a public institution located in Marietta, Georgia (official website). It strengthens community ties through family engagement initiatives (official website) such as its Parent Resource Center offering computers and workshops for families (official website).
Brick Storm will compete against teams from around sixty countries later this spring.
