Fresh off a recent appearance on KUSI’s Good Morning San Diego, “The Holy Cows” robotics team continues to reflect on its World Championship achievement 22 years in the making.
The High Tech High San Diego-based Team 1538 earned the title as part of the winning alliance at the 2026 FIRST Robotics Competition Championship in Houston alongside Team 4414 HighTide (Ventura, Calif.), Team 1323 MadTown Robotics (Madera, Calif.), and Team 4065 Nerds of Prey (Minneola, Fla.). In FIRST Robotics Competition, alliance play requires teams to collaborate under pressure, combining engineering strengths, strategy, and teamwork on the world’s biggest stage.
The achievement was powered by decades of support from students, mentors, alumni, and San Diego’s business community.
“When we took the field in Houston and claimed the 2026 FIRST Championship title, we didn’t do it alone,” said Robotics Program Coordinator David Berggren. “Behind 35 students and 22 years of excellence stands a San Diego business community that believed in us and showed up in ways that go far beyond a check.”
Among the team’s longtime partners is Qualcomm, a strategic FIRST partner that has supported robotics education in San Diego for more than two decades. In addition to financial support, Qualcomm engineers mentor students each season and volunteer at robotics competitions throughout the year. Through outreach efforts like Qualcomm’s Q Kids Days, The Holy Cows helped introduce STEM and robotics to hundreds of local students, helping spark the creation of four new FIRST LEGO League teams this year alone.
Vivid Hosting has also played a major role in the program’s growth, providing mentorship, internships, and hands-on support. This season, the company sponsored the truck that transported the team’s robots to Houston and helped transform an airplane hangar into a full-size robotics practice field open to FIRST teams across San Diego County. Several Holy Cows alumni who interned through Vivid Hosting have gone on to universities such as Harvey Mudd College, University of California San Diego, and California Institute of Technology.
Additional support from Dow, BAE Systems, NimbleBit, and EP Wealth Advisors has helped expand access to hands-on STEM learning opportunities for students throughout the region.
“This is what corporate investment in STEM can look like,” Berggren said. “Not just funding, but mentorship, access, opportunity, and an entire community rallying around San Diego’s next generation.”
Over the past three years, The Holy Cows have contributed more than 9,000 hours of community service, hosted 16 consecutive years of FIRST LEGO League events serving more than 1,300 students annually, and reached more than 7,000 students and families across San Diego.
“FIRST is more than robots,” Berggren said. “Over the past 22 years, The Holy Cows have inspired hundreds of students to pursue STEM careers. We’ve developed student leaders, expanded access to STEM, and demonstrated the power of teamwork, mentorship, and community.”
HTH CEO Diana Cornejo-Sanchez, Ed.D., said the championship reflects the ingenuity, resilience, and teamwork that define both the robotics team and the High Tech High learning community.
“Seeing our students stand on the global stage as part of the winning alliance in Houston was an incredible moment of pride for all of us,” Cornejo-Sanchez said. “Their achievement is a testament not only to their technical skill, but also to the dedication of the coaches, mentors, families, and supporters who helped make this journey possible — especially through the adversity they overcame along the way.”
Berggren said the team’s success was no accident.
“We are Team 1538. We are the Holy Cows,” he added. “And none of this happens without San Diego.”
View HTH three-minute match with its red alliance partners below.
