The School at Marygrove’s robotics team will travel to the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Houston next week, marking the first time since 2008 that a Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) high school has qualified for this global event, according to an April 22 announcement. The last DPS school to reach this stage was Chadsey High School.
This achievement highlights significant progress and renewed opportunity within Detroit schools. For Marygrove, it is the result of years of rebuilding and sustained student effort. The team’s head coach, Leon Pryor, said, “We’ve long set the goal of wanting to get to the world championships, and we knew that Detroit teams hadn’t been in quite some time. So it was really important for us to break through that ceiling.”
Marygrove’s Team 8280 K9.0 Robotics was relaunched four years ago and now consists of 13 students from grades nine through twelve. The team ranks among the top programs in Michigan and recently earned recognition as one of the state’s strongest after placing 25th out of more than five hundred teams and receiving the Gracious Professionalism Award.
Pryor credits their growth mindset: “We use a technique…called Kaizen, which is the principle of continuous improvement,” he said. “We’re always looking at ways to make our team 3 to 5% better.” This approach has helped them build advanced robots like their current entry “Inugami,” which features computer vision navigation and can shoot up to fifteen balls per second with automated targeting.
Pryor emphasized student leadership on the project: “All of this was designed, fabricated and built by Detroit kids,” he said. He also described his own journey from supporting his son’s elementary robotics experience into coaching high schoolers after being asked post-pandemic to help rebuild Marygrove’s program.
Beyond competition success, Pryor views robotics as a pathway for economic mobility: “An entry-level engineer can make $89,000 to $120,000 a year right out of college…we’re creating opportunities for entire families.”
Before departing for Houston—and exposure not only to global peers but also potential future employers such as NASA—Marygrove students will be honored with a schoolwide celebration on Monday afternoon.
As they prepare for this milestone event representing both their school and district pride on an international stage, Pryor concluded: “This is kind of a lifetime event that these kids won’t forget.”