Gulf Shores High School’s new robotics team took home the “highly coveted” Rookie All-Star Award from the 2026 Magnolia Regional: the team’s first-ever competition.

Team 10961 HyperWave coach and Gulf Shores High School (GSHS) computer science teacher Jamie McClung said the all-star honor is the highest achievement available to a rookie team at a regional event.

To earn this award, students worked cohesively as a team to demonstrate engineering and robotics skills with a commitment to values used in FIRST, a technical-education program.

“The students approached every challenge with curiosity and resilience,” he said. “Watching them grow into a team that reflects the spirit of FIRST been one of the greatest rewards of this season.”

Even though the competition world was new for the team, McClung said students adapted quickly to the fast-paced engineering challenges of competition.

The school’s competitive team officially launched at the beginning of this year. Students earned their instructions for the challenge on Jan. 10 and have been working on their project since.

Students on the team said they were excited about the Rookie All-Star win.

“Winning Rookie All-Star means everything to us,” said senior student Ty Pitman. “We worked late nights, solved problems together and pushed ourselves harder than we ever thought we could. To have all of that recognized — it’s an incredible feeling.”

“I’m proud of how far we’ve come, not just with the robot but as a team,” sophomore student Jadelynn Petitjean said. “We supported each other every step of the way. Being selected for this award shows that all our effort was worth it.”

HyperWave coach and GSHS engineering teacher James Salvant said students showed a commitment to learn and keep learning, which “was the heartbeat” of the robot used in the challenges.

For the competition, he said, students “tackled problems that would intimidate experienced engineers.”

Programming mentor Michael Raines said he was impressed with how quickly the team worked through the controls and programming in real-time.

“They worked through every bug and setback with patience and enthusiasm,” he said. “Their progress was extraordinary.”

Mentor Regan McClung, who teaches a robotics class for Gulf Shores Middle School, said the students have actively participated in outreach at the local level.

From presenting at schools, hosting robotics demonstrations and volunteering at local tech competitions for elementary and middle school students, the HyperWave team has actively grown STEM opportunities in their region, which is evaluated alongside general robot performance to win the Rookie All-Star Award.

“They weren’t satisfied with just competing,” Regan McClung said. “They wanted to make robotics accessible to everyone around them. That passion for sharing STEM with the community is something you can’t teach. It comes from within the students.”

After winning the Rookie All-Star Award, HyperWave qualified to move on to the Rocket City Regional, held April 8-11 in Huntsville. At this competition, like the Magnolia Regional, students competed alongside teams from around the world.