DENHAM SPRINGS — The Denham Springs High School robotics team made history over the weekend when they became the first Louisiana team to win a division title at the FIRST Robotics World Championships.

FIRST — For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — is the world’s largest robotics competition held in Houston, Texas, from April 16 to 19. The Denham Springs team — the Denham Venom — was one of 600 teams selected from a larger pool of 3,700 to compete in the championship where they had to build and program a fully functional 140-pound robot. 

At this year's championship, the team was No. 1 overall in a division that saw teams from Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, China and Israel competing, Livingston Parish Schools said. However, they were eliminated in the finals.

The Denham Venom team included Jacob Duke, Evan Durbin, Nicholas Carpenter and Sebastian Cupit and was led by Drive Coach Rohit Gondi.

“I’ve been coaching robotics teams in Louisiana for 15 years and am always floored by the commitment and passion that these students bring to their work,” Denham Venom Head Coach Daniel Eiland said. “They spend hundreds of hours after school building these 140-pound robots from scratch, and to see our team make it this far only shows their continued ability to go farther than anyone could imagine.”

In the competition's 36 years, a Louisiana team has never even made it as far as this year's team from Denham, which was also a finalist at regional competitions. The team also competed in the world championship last year.

The team was funded by over two dozen sponsors, including the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility, Dow Chemical, Weyerhaeuser, Chevron and DoDSTEM.