Even during the summer months, students at Harris County Department of Education’s (HCDE) Academic and Behavior Schools were busy learning robotics and getting hands-on experience with STEM adventures.

On July 7, more than 20 students met at ABS West to showcase their newfound knowledge at the annual summer All-Earth Ecobot Challenge. Hosted in conjunction with the Center for Afterschool, Summer and Enrichment (CASE) for Kids, Special Schools brings the competition to its students during the extended school year to practice social-emotional skills such as working together, managing frustrations and remaining calm in pressure situations.

Following a morning of friendly competition, it was ABS East which claimed the team trophy.

“This has been great. To see them go from not knowing anything about it to learning and even excelling at what they did was really rewarding,” said ABS East teacher Frank Harris, who took the lead on helping students learn the robotics and better understand the tasks.

In 2021, Special Schools and CASE for Kids leadership worked together to bring the Ecobot Challenge to students at ABS West.

The original competition is held during the school year for elementary school and middle school students across Harris County. Facilitated by CASE for Kids, the hands-on, project-based competition features teams building, programming and piloting LEGO MINDSTORM EV3 robots through a series of missions to navigate real-world environmental challenges. Teams learn the year’s theme in January (2026 was Kingdom of Ecobot: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink) and start crafting their strategy and programming their robots.

Nearly 100 students competed at the challenge in April.

The Summer Ecobot Challenge is tailored for AB Schools students, who work through intellectual, developmental and behavioral disorders and other significant health impartments, and can mean so much more. This year’s theme was soccer inspired by the summer’s 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Competitions included students controlling Sphero coding robots on a soccer pitch, using an iPad as a joystick and moving balls toward a goal to score points. In others, students used the robots or coded Dash Robots to move around boundaries and knock over bowling pins. The day ended with Sphero races.

“We love the summer Ecobot Challenge because it allows us an opportunity to modify our main competition for our ABS students,” CASE for Kids Assistant Director Trina Finley said. “Plus, it’s a great opportunity to help celebrate National Summer Learning Week. We bring in the STEM but it’s fun. We have a good time.”

Students earned points throughout the challenges, from completing a task to finishing within a certain time frame.

The challenge helped students like Anthony Broussard (ABS West) and Gabriel Ryan (ABS East) build and strengthen their life skills. They and their peers needed to solve problems and think creatively in real time when their robots didn’t move accordingly. They needed to exercise patience when changes occurred, such as losing connectivity or bumping into an obstacle on the course.

Broussard (85 points) and Ryan (36) were the top point scorers from their respective campuses.

At the end after the scores were tallied, ABS East edged out ABS West for the team trophy by a 271-255 margin.

Regardless of their finish, students fully embraced the friendly competition. They cheered each other on and watched each other’s hard work come to life.

“Seeing them work together and getting through everything is great,” Harris said. “From Day 1, which is a very tentative time because they’re now sure how to control them and they’re going everywhere, to more time going and them getting a better understanding of what do with them.”

For more information about the All-Earth Ecobot Challenge, visit http://EcobotChallenge.com.