When Hanna Nash ’26 first started the Robotics team at Randolph-Macon, inspired by a love for robotics competition from high school, she wasn’t quite sure what they’d be able to achieve.

“I was unsure if we could even compete before I graduated,” she recalled. But in just its third year of existence, not only is the team competing, it’s winning games at VEX U competitions.

Nash, a Computer Science and Cybersecurity double-major, started the organization as a sophomore with five members. Now that she is a senior and the team president, RMC Robotics has doubled its membership to 10 and counts Computer Science professors Dr. La Toria Tookes and Dr. Maha Elouni as advisors.

VEX Robotics organizes robotics competitions at levels from elementary school through college, with VEX U serving as the league for collegiate teams. The competition itself varies from year to year; at the beginning of each season, VEX releases the rules and parameters for that year’s game, and teams must build their robots to fit the new challenge.

The 2025-2026 game is called “Push Back,” and centers on placing blocks on elevated goals. Each team operates two robots, one large and one small, and the game consists of both an autonomous period and a driver-controlled period.

Randolph-Macon often stands out from its competitors. Most schools in VEX U competitions are large universities with significant focus on engineering programs. Rarely, if at all, are there other small liberal arts colleges competing. Members of RMC Robotics represent a variety of academic majors, including Ash Kennedy ’28, an English major and Communication Studies minor who is the team’s vice president and drives a robot during competition.

“If you’re committed to wanting to learn and committed to wanting to succeed, then that’s really helpful,” Nash said. “And it doesn’t really matter what major you are.”

Robotics competition is intense. Not only are teams trying to achieve a goal, but they’re also simultaneously trying to disrupt the other team. “It is a contact sport,” Kennedy quips, emphasizing that strategy, teamwork, and communication play a role in winning just as much as the build quality of the robots.

The team made its competitive debut last year but only fielded one robot and struggled against robust competition. This year, after receiving financial support from alumni, RMC Robotics participated in three competitions, piloting two robots.

The young program’s high-water mark came at the Virginia Tech CRO Down on Feb. 22. Operating under the callsign MJ5 (“MJ” for Metal Jackets, and 5 as an homage to the number of original team members), the team won three out of seven games in the round-robin qualification round, defeating host Virginia Tech twice and Liberty University once, then beating Liberty again in the quarterfinals. It marked the first victories in the team’s history.

“They’ve done so well in such a short amount of time,” said Tookes, the team’s advisor.

In addition to success in the results table, RMC was also recognized with the Judge’s Award, which considers qualities such as unique attributes, exemplary effort, perseverance during the event, and accomplishments or contributions throughout the season.

“They really enjoyed hearing from us about our story as a team program, hearing about where we wanted to go, where we came from,” Kennedy said. “This is not just an extracurricular club. This is a team.”