The robotics team from St. Michael-Albertville High School is celebrating after securing a fifth-place finish at the World Championship over the weekend.

The team of 38 students competed at the championship in Houston, Texas, along with 600 other teams from around the world. Their main goal was to build robots that perform certain tasks all under time limits.

In total, over 50,000 people attended the event from over 50 countries.

The team finished fifth in the competition and became “Curie” division champions, beating out the other 70 teams in their division.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS caught up with the team as classmates, teachers and parents welcomed them home on Sunday evening.

“I would just like to thank our coaches and our mentors and especially our 38 kids for giving up a week of their life and making STMA proud,” said STMA Schools Superintendent Ann-Marie Foucault. “They really made us proud and we are so happy for them.”

“It’s pretty crazy, we’re really grateful for the experience to be able to play with some of the best teams in the world so it’s really cool,” said Sydney Gasser, a member of the team.

Coach Zack Osowski added, “The kids set a goal to make it to the playoffs at the World Tournament and we hit that goal and I was super proud of them for that and it was beyond our wildest dreams to take home the trophy and upset the number one alliance as the lowest seeded eighth alliance.”

“It’s insane, we’re all really excited, really pumped,” Grace Kirk, another member of the team, said. “At the beginning of the season [at] our first regional, our robot was not up to par, we scrapped it, built a new one in a week and came fifth in the world and I think that is like zero-to-hero kind of story.”