In its final regular season competition before the state championships on March 3, the Holy Ghost Prep’s first-year VEX robotics program won the tournament championship at the Forest Hills VEX in the Zone Tournament in Gilman, Pa. last weekend.

Holy Ghost Prep’s 242-A team of Mason El-Habr, Jack Pinkstone, Sean Smith, Aiden Schmidt, and James Castner travelled to Western Pennsylvania and bested the other 22 other teams in the competition. 

The tournament victory served as the perfect tune-up for the 2017-18 Eastern Pennsylvania state championship competition at Norristown High School, a competition that will pit the 75 best teams on this part of the state against one another on March 3.

In addition to competing in the tournament, the Holy Ghost Prep students were given a private tour of the Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center, met the school’s racing team and saw its electric Formula SAE race car, and also toured the RobboMatter, Inc. headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh (where they are developing new products for VEX).