Club History
Page by Samuel Yao, Patrick Young, and Eddie Xu (ISB)
The ISB HS Robotics Club, one of the oldest clubs at the International School of Beijing, began classroom and after-school activities in 2013 with the exploration of VEX Cortex and EDR systems. Student leadership of the HS Club began in roughly 2014 with elected club executives managing the administration of the club with club advisors as supervisors.
Throughout the early history of the club (though unclear), evidence suggests that the club also took interest in competitions such as the FLL (First Lego League), and Botball.
The first record of VRC tournament participation by ISB HS Robotics teams is in the ROBOTC Nothing But Net Tournament in Xi'an with team numbers 32004A and 32004B.
later switching to team number 91033A in the Tianjin International Starstruck Competition.
The current organization team number 86832 was first adopted in the 2018-2019 Turning Point season with the teams 86832A and 86832B, with 86832C and 86832D being introduced in 2019-2020 Tower Takeover.
The former logo for the ISB Robotics Club was adopted around 2019 and designed by the HS Robotics Executive Team. In 2024, the logo was redesigned by Draxonics, a student club focusing on design (Sophie Bai, Polly Su, Yuki Liu, Sienna Wong, Julian Yu, Janelle Yue) to better reflect the style guidelines of the International School of Beijing.
Although most students primarily stayed within one of the four teams, teams were flexible and members could switch teams between competition seasons under the guidance of club advisors and the executive team. When such information was available, the current and past members of each team were listed on the respective team pages of the site.
Before the creation of the ISB MS/HS Design Center, the HS Robotics Club was hosted in an EdTech classroom opposite the HS Office (now known as the "Dragon's Den"). In the 2020-2021 school year, after the construction of the design center, HS Robotics took place in the dedicated robotics area near the rear of the design center adjacent to design center offices, art classrooms and the computer science classroom.
At the start of the 2024-2025 V5RC High Stakes season, the club had expanded to a record size of ~50 High School members, making the club the largest High School club at the International School of Beijing. There were also ~20 students in the ISB Middle School Robotics teams.
Near the end of the High Stakes season, head coach (Mr. Daryl Harkin) instated a 6-person limit per team to match the number of students allowed per team for APAC events, as well as to meet the demands of a growing club. As a result, around August 20th, 4 additional teams were formally created and registered on RobotEvents, bearing the letters W,X,Y, and Z during the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
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