From the garage to the grand championships, Island Robotics has done it again.

The Waipahu-based youth robotics club will be sending three teams to the VEX IQ Robotics World Championships in late April in Dallas, where 800 teams representing 65 countries will compete. Last year, two Island Robotics teams went to the championships, with its elementary school-age girls team placing 11th and a middle school-age boys team placing 16th.

This year’s teams won entry to the championships after emerging from the statewide competition in January as the only independent, nonschool-based teams in the state to win or place second in 14 different categories of competition. Ten school-based teams and one private team also qualified for the event.

In the parlance of robotics competitions, independent teams like Island Robotics are called “garage” teams, and in fact, Island Robotics is based in coach Mitchell “Mitz” Picardal’s garage. He started coaching youth robotics seven years ago when his son got interested in robotics. One thing led to another, and now he continues to work with whomever is interested.

“Most of these kids, I didn’t know them,” said Picardal, an engineer for Island Controls Inc., a company that automates air conditioning and lighting systems for businesses. “They just found out (about us) on our Facebook page or somebody referred them to us.”

For the competition, teams must build a robot that will roll up to two containers of plastic disks, transfer the disks into its own container, then slide the disks underneath a bar and across a floor marked out in grids. Getting as many disks as possible in certain grids earns extra points, but if a disk hops over the bar, it doesn’t count. They’ll be using parts by VEX Robotics, a manufacturer of educational robotics kits. Teams will have one minute to score as many points as possible. They also have to produce a notebook describing how they built their robot and be able to discuss its design in an ­interview.

The three Island Robotics teams going to Dallas are a girls elementary school-age team, Hawaii Girl Power, and two boys teams, an elementary school team and a middle school, both of which go by the name Wall-E. The other programs from Hawaii that qualified to go to Dallas are elementary programs from Manoa Elementary, Haili Christian School, Kaunakakai Elementary and Haleiwa Elementary, and middle school programs from Hilo Intermediate, Ewa Makai Middle, Haili Christian School, Maui Waena Intermediate, Waiakea Intermediate and Samuel Enoka Kalama Intermediate. A private program, Hamada Robotics, also qualified for the world championships.

Picardal’s nephew Ethan Picardal, an eighth-grader at Pearl Harbor Christian Academy, leads the Wall-E middle school boys team. He also went to Dallas last year, but he is especially eager to return since he caught COVID-19 on the flight to the mainland and had to remain in his hotel.

He emphasized the ­teamwork involved in the competition. One of his teammates is especially strong in coding, while he and a third teammate are experienced “drivers.” It’s a good combination of talent, since the robots have to be able to function by ­remote control as well as autonomously.

Ethan Picardal likes robotics because “it challenges the mind to solve problems and think of new ideas,” he said.

Girl Power team leader ­Julia Reilly, a sixth-grader at Kanoelani Elementary, also went to the championships last year but is traveling with new team members this year, since last year’s teammates graduated to middle school. She took on a leadership role with the new team.

“I tried to lead them so they don’t stay off-task, because that can happen if you don’t have someone tell you what to do,” she said. “But they also helped me, like if I get something wrong, they’ll tell me I was wrong.”

She said last year’s task, which involved catapulting a ball into a basket, was easier than this year’s, which requires “a more high-quality robot,” she said. “It was more difficult this year, but we still made it to worlds, so we still feel accomplished,” she said.

Kamuela Camacho-­Fuentes, a sixth-grader at Mililani Middle, has only been part of Island Robotics for a few months. He got interested in robotics through the Boy Scouts, where he met Mitz Picardal, who provided his troop with the necessary expertise and kept them focused.

“Before, I liked to do Lego Robotics, and then I got exposed to VEX Robotics,” Kamuela said. “So when our team joined, we didn’t really have too much control. We didn’t know what our tasks were.”

For Mitz Picardal, the pleasure is seeing everybody working so hard together. The kids often work into the night and on weekends, while he provides them with snacks and the necessary gear from VEX, all at a nominal cost.

“They come here, they play here,” he said. “They’re just like family.”

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Island Robotics has established gofundme accounts for each team, accessible through its Facebook page at facebook.com/islandrobotics.