The Fishers High School robotics team, known as Tiger Dynasty, is heading to the global stage after a strong showing at the FIRST Indiana State Championship.

Team sponsor and coach Amelia Stone said the group has qualified for the FIRST World Championship in Houston, placing the team among roughly 600 teams worldwide advancing from a field of more than 3,000.

Along the way, Tiger Dynasty earned the prestigious Innovation in Controls Award, sponsored by nVent. The award recognizes teams whose control systems demonstrate unique and effective use of sensors, software and robot controls — a technical honor judged by engineering professionals.

“This is an engineering recognition, and our students earned it on the merits of what they built,” Stone said.

Within Indiana, the Fishers team finished the season ranked ninth out of 69 teams.

At the state championship competition, Tiger Dynasty placed 15th in qualification rounds before being selected as the first pick of Alliance 4 in the playoff draft. The team’s alliance battled through the lower bracket of the double-elimination playoffs, advancing to Match 12 — the lower bracket final — before being eliminated one match short of the championship series.

That performance placed the alliance among the top four of the eight playoff alliances.

Stone acknowledged the team had higher expectations entering the event but said the outcome reflects the quality of the students’ work.

“Candidly, our 15th-place qualifying rank was below where we believed this robot could land,” she said. “But the combination of reaching Match 12, winning the Innovation in Controls Award, and qualifying for Worlds tells a story: the students’ engineering is at a championship level.”

The team is already preparing adjustments for the world competition, with travel to Houston set to begin within the next week.

Tiger Dynasty is seeking community support to help cover travel expenses for the trip. Donations can be made through the team’s website at this link.

The Fishers students will now represent their school — and the broader community — as they compete against top robotics teams from around the world.