Recently, two of UPrep’s competitive teams took their talents to national and international competitions. Mock Trial competed in the National High School Mock Trial Championship in Des Moines, Iowa, and Robotics competed in the Vex Robotics World Championship in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Below are two articles written by members of The Puma Press (UPrep's Upper School student newspaper) highlighting the work done by the teams for their respective competitions. Since publication, the Mock Trial team has returned from nationals, where they placed 17th out of the 50 teams.

Pretrial Pressure

Mock Trial Prepares for Nationals

By Grant D., Puma Press Copy Editor, 11th grade

UPrep’s mock trial team will compete in nationals, as one of roughly 50 teams, from May 8-9 in Des Moines, Iowa.

This is the first time in 21 years that UPrep has competed at nationals, according to mock trial captain and senior Keston G. 

In preparation, the team greatly increased their practice times, practicing from 11 to 8 on Sundays and from 3 to 6 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 

Nine team members will make the trip to nationals to compete. Since they qualified, they have practiced for a combined total of more than 1,000 hours in preparation for nationals, according to Keston. 

“It’s a super intense time to be on the team, but we’re really gonna put our heads down and do the best that we can to represent Washington state at the national level,” Keston said. 

Keston joined the Mock Trial team in ninth grade alongside co-captain and senior Aslan M. 

“Going to nationals has always been the dream ever since I was a little youngin’ here at UPrep,” Keston said. “Aslan and I have really made an effort to travel with our varsity team to state and fill any supplementary roles we’ve had over the years.”

Aslan reminisced on his time on the Mock Trial team. 

“It’s crazy how far we came,” Aslan said. “So that’s something that was really rewarding, and a testament to the program, a testament to my friendship with Keston.”

Molly H., senior and attorney for the team, believes the coaches have been vital to the team’s success. 

“It’s crazy that Coach Grace [Olayinka] and Coach Patrick [Trompeter] are literally giving, like, eight or three hours of their day every day, to show up and be there for us. It’s like, I don’t understand why sometimes,” Molly said. 

Keston reflects on all the time and effort that has led the team to nationals.

“This is the day that we’ve been working for,” Keston said. “This is the competition we’ve been dreaming of.”

Driven to Success

Robotics Attends the VEX Robotics World Championship

By Isla W., Puma Press Reporter, 9th grade

While UPrep students were attending classes, completing homework and sitting through assemblies, the monitor in the ULab Programs office stayed tuned to the VEX Robotics World Championship, where a team of four UPrep students competed. A constant stream of Schoology posts from Director of Innovation and Experiential Education Brian Gonzales kept the community updated, and in some classes, teachers streamed the matches on their projector screens. Seniors Mohamed F. and Niam P., junior Ariel W., and ninth grader Henry C. are the four who make up team 90385G, traveling to St. Louis from April 20 to April 25.

“We were really happy to hear about and watch videos of classes watching our matches,” Ariel said. “We got videos from people in history, English, and physics classes.”

As for the road there, Academic Technology Program Manager June Peters, a chaperone on the trip, attributes the success of the program to two things: the hard work of Farah and Patel, the seniors on the team who have revived the program since the pandemic, and the addition of an extra hour to the teams’ daily practice, bringing it from one and a half hours to two and a half.

“It’s not just building robots, there’s programming, there’s project management, there’s teamwork, and, of course, competitiveness,” June said.

Each year, VEX tournaments take a different form, forcing students to learn new ways to program, practice, and drive. This time, teams had to use their robots to put balls into plastic tubes raised off of the ground, which are called goals by the students. June appreciates the variety and diversity of tournament styles.

“If you’re in it for a few years, you learn a whole bunch of different stuff,” June said. “You have very different challenges to solve.”

The 2026 challenge consisted of an arena with three goals that teams had to put "blocks" into. The blocks are polyhedrons in blue and red colors, to signify which team they belong to. One goal is located in the middle of the arena, while two others are on opposing edges. The "goals" are horizontal tubes lifted off of the ground, and approximately the size of the blocks. Teams this year must have built their robots to be able to lift the blocks up to the goals, knock the other teams blocks out of goals, and pick up blocks on the ground. One of the biggest challenges this year was strategy: teams had to figure out ways to defend against opponents because the tubes had openings in the top which allowed blocks to be hit out of the goals.

To prepare for worlds, teams practiced against each other and developed their robots further and each member of the team had a more specific job.

“I did a lot of practice driving, because that’s an important thing, and I’m the driver for the team,” Niam said. “And then Henry C., who’s the coder, did a ton of coding, of making new algorithms, making better routes, [and] making it more consistent.”

Before the start of the trip, June said they hope the team can win an award, but they realized it will be hard, with the UPrep team facing skilled opponents, notably from California, Michigan and China. During spring break, Niam said that he and the team had a more specific goal.

“There’s 10 divisions, so our goal is to make the round of 16, which is the top 32 teams. So that’s our goal. That’ll be quite hard, but we’ll try for it,” Niam said.

In the first few days of competition, the team exceeded their goal. 90385G was ranked number 5 going into the round of 16 with a 10-2 record. On April 22, Henry sent a quick summary of how the first few days had been.

“It has been pretty insane,” Henry said. “The scale of it is absolutely overwhelming; it’s really cool to talk to and play with teams thousands of miles away from us.”

By the end of worlds, 90385G was 11-3, having made it to quarterfinals and coming home with a trophy and lots of experience, from meeting other students to engineers from NASA.

“[Other teams] bring a different perspective than we do here in Seattle,” Niam said. “It was very fun to play all these different types of strategies.”

Niam hopes that the recognition from worlds helps the robotics team grow into the future.

“Definitely very good exposure,” Niam said. “We’re kind of sharing with the school, and the school [is] kind of following along.”

To read more articles from The Puma Press, click here.