Wonder League competition chooses Jacksonville students as runners-up

Three Eisenhower Elementary students have placed among the top teams in the world in an international robotics competition.

Incoming fifth graders Claire Bruce, Vivian Dobson and Elly Bumgarner, also known as the SeaQuin Coders, were runners-up in two categories of the 2026 Wonder League Robotics Competition. The trio was named a runner-up in the judge’s choice competition among 500 teams and the people’s choice competition among 50 teams.

The competition, held each year by educational robotics company Wonder Workshop, tasks teams from all over the world with completing a series of missions using the companies’ robots. Competitors program a robot from the company to complete various objectives on a map they get to decorate themselves.

This year marked the first time the SeaQuin Coders participated in the contest. Claire said her neighbor, Illinois School for the Deaf coding teacher Lana Shea, had tried to get her into the competition before, but this year marked the first time all three students were free to participate. Vivian said she is friends with Henry Garver, who won the contest’s Innovator Cup award alongside Charlie Guidish in 2023.

Working through the missions themselves involved a lot of trial and error. Vivian described one mission in which the team’s robot had to use an arm to get a plastic bag off a sea turtle; it took several tries to complete.

“Sometimes he missed it and sometimes he got it, but didn’t get it fully,” she said. “Sometimes, we had to change code a little bit and we needed him to be in his correct spot and everything.”

What the team really enjoyed about being part of the competition was creating the obstacles for its course and robot. Many of the decorations were ocean-themed, with the team populating its map with moving waves and sea creatures and dressing up its robot as a pirate and scuba diver.

“We get to do all this fun, creative stuff,” Claire said. “We get to make.”

All three SeaQuin Coders said they want to have another go in the competition, though they only “kind of” expected to get as far as they did, Claire said. Seeing their names as runners-up in the competition came as a surprise.

“It was nerve-wracking, just waiting until it was our turn,” Elly said. 

Shea said she “knew all along” they were going to rank as highly as they did.

“They’re just so creative and good,” she said. “I had no doubt.”