Programming skills, engineering thinking, and the ability to stay composed under pressure were put to the test as The Dewey Schools Robotics Team competed at Enjoy AI Asian Open 2026*, held last weekend at the National Innovation Center (NIC) in Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park.
Congratulations to our High School TDSers, with all four teams finishing in the Top 8 of the Invention Trials E category:
Third Place: Team The Kangnam – Kang Younggun (10Edmonton), Phạm Hải Nam (11Denton)
Top 4: Team WCB – Nguyễn Tự Tuyển (10Edmonton), Nguyễn Minh Đức (10Edmonton)
Top 7: Team LBJ – Phạm Trí Dũng (10Edmonton), Đỗ Hoàng Minh (10Edmonton)
Top 8: Team Search in Rankings – Hồ Anh Phong (11Columbus), Trịnh Trần Trí Thành (11Columbus)
Throughout the summer break, team members continued to spend time in the VEX Robotics lab researching, assembling, programming, and testing their robots. Whenever a robot did not perform as expected, another cycle began: identifying the issue, adjusting the code, fine-tuning the mechanism, and testing again. Mr Trịnh Gia Hiển and the teaching team closely supported the process, offering guidance and helping students gradually refine their solutions.
A robot that performs well in the lab does not always behave the same way on the competition floor. At Enjoy AI Asian Open 2026, teams faced unexpected challenges, limited troubleshooting time, and situations that required them to continuously adjust their strategies.
In those high-pressure moments, Dewey students demonstrated their ability to observe, collaborate, and solve problems in real time. They rechecked connections, reviewed their programs, adjusted tactics, and used every run as an opportunity to improve the robot’s performance.
“Even when we faced unexpected challenges, our team kept trying different solutions and reminded ourselves to give it our best, even if we failed,” shared Kang Younggun (10Edmonton).
According to Mr Trịnh Gia Hiển, Coach of The Dewey Schools Robotics Team, what stood out most was the students’ ability to remain focused and keep looking for solutions when the actual competition unfolded very differently from what they had prepared for. That resilience is built through every round of testing, every technical error, and every decision made under pressure on the competition floor.
At Dewey, Robotics is approached as a complete engineering process in which students design, program, test, analyse errors, and continuously improve their solutions. Enjoy AI Asian Open 2026 brought that entire process into a real-world challenge on a continental stage, where knowledge had to be translated into action.
The Dewey Schools is proud of the rankings our teams achieved, and even prouder of the way TDSers stayed calm, worked together, and kept pursuing solutions until the very end. In Robotics, a robot that does not work as expected is not the end of the problem. It is often the very moment when engineering thinking, perseverance, and the confidence of young engineers become most visible.
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(*) ENJOY AI Asian Open 2026 is a continental-level Robotics and Artificial Intelligence competition within FGYA’s global competition system, held in Vietnam for the first time. The event brought together hundreds of young technology talents from different countries and territories and offered participants the opportunity to qualify for the World Finals.
