POLITEHNICA Bucharest Students Make History at FIRST Robotics World Championship

Team AlphaZ #11141 has made history for Romania by becoming the first Romanian team to win an award at the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship, held in Houston in 2026.

In their rookie season, the team received the Rookie All-Star Award (Daly Division), recognizing outstanding engineering, effective organization and meaningful community impact. The achievement follows the team's success at the regional competition in Türkiye, where they also received the Rookie All-Star Award.

The team's success was made possible by a diverse group of students from across Romania, including students from several faculties of POLITEHNICA Bucharest, who collaborated across software, electronics and mechanical design, supported by peer mentors and team leadership.

Students from POLITEHNICA Bucharest who contributed to this achievement represented three faculties:

• Faculty of Automatic Control and Computer Science: Alex Deonise, Mihai-Petru Diaconeasa, Robert-Alexandru Ghiță, Ștefan-Eduard Manda
• Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Robotics: Robert Cristian Păun, Andrei-Cristian Popidan, Rareș-Constantin Zamfira
• Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology: Ovidiu Burtan

The achievement marks an important milestone for Romanian robotics, demonstrating the impact of interdisciplinary collaboration, engineering innovation and student initiative on the international stage.

POLITEHNICA Bucharest congratulates all team members, mentors and supporters for this outstanding achievement and their contribution to strengthening Romania's presence in international robotics competitions.