Two UC Senior High School Students From Baguio Won the 2026 National Robotics Championship. Now They Represent the Philippines in China.
Zyrus Whayne Naganag and John Victor Advincula of UC SHS defeated teams from 15 regions at the TechQuest National Robotics Challenge for Academia on April 16–17, 2026 in Makati, taking the champion title, the Best Robot Design Award, and a slot at an international robotics competition in China.
On April 16 and 17, 2026, two senior high school students from the University of the Cordilleras walked out of City Garden Hotel in Makati as national robotics champions. Zyrus Whayne Naganag and John Victor Advincula, competing as UC SHS Team B under coach Ryan Christian Tolentino, won the 2026 TechQuest: National Robotics Challenge for Academia, organized by DigiPlus Foundation in partnership with the Department of Information and Communications Technology. On top of the champion title, they took home the Best Robot Design Award, two FutureSmart Educational Grants worth PHP 100,000 each, a ZMRobo Innovation Storm Robot Set, and the right to represent the Philippines at an international robotics competition in China.
This is not a regional participation award. This is a national championship, beaten out of 15 regions, by two students from Baguio City.
From Regional Runner-Up to National Champion
The arc matters here. In September 2025, the same pairing of Naganag and Advincula placed 1st Runner-Up at the Cordillera Regional TechQuest Robotics Challenge, organized by DICT-CAR. That result qualified them for the national stage. Seven months later, they returned as champions.
That progression, from regional near-miss to national title, is a story about preparation, not luck. Coach Ryan Christian Tolentino's role in that development is part of the record. The team did not just improve. They improved enough to beat every other qualified team in the country.
TechQuest is a DICT-backed national initiative launched in 2025. It has trained 150 public school teachers and engaged 300 students across 15 regions, providing robotics kits, coding training, and structured mentorship through DigiPlus Foundation's FutureSmart programme. The national challenge is the competitive summit of that pipeline.
What They Built
The Best Robot Design Award tells you something specific about how UC SHS won. Robotics competitions at this level score on multiple dimensions: task performance, design elegance, and technical innovation. A team that wins both the overall championship and the design award did not just execute well. They built something that stood out on its own terms.
The ZMRobo Innovation Storm Robot Set they received as part of the prize package is the same hardware used in the TechQuest training programme, making it directly usable for the team's continued development ahead of the international competition in China.
What This Means for Northern Luzon
A national robotics championship from a Baguio senior high school is a data point that the region's STEM ecosystem should use deliberately. UC SHS competing at this level did not happen in isolation. It happened because DICT-CAR ran a regional qualifying challenge that gave Cordilleran students a structured pathway to the national stage. It happened because UC invested in coaching and hardware. And it happened because two students chose to take it seriously over seven months of preparation.
The replicable elements here are the pathway and the infrastructure, not just the talent. DICT-CAR's regional TechQuest challenge is the entry point. Other schools in Benguet, Kalinga, Abra, Ifugao, Mountain Province, and across Northern Luzon have students capable of this level of performance. The question is whether those schools have coaches, kits, and qualifying events that give those students the same shot Naganag and Advincula had.
As Naganag and Advincula prepare to represent the Philippines internationally, the broader ask to DICT-CAR, DOST-CAR, and Northern Luzon's HEIs is simple: build more of this pipeline, and build it in more provinces.
Follow UC SHS and DICT-CAR for updates on the team's preparation for the international competition in China.
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Market Context:
The global robotics market is projected to reach USD 218 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 17.5%, driven by automation in manufacturing, healthcare, and defense. DigiPlus Foundation's TechQuest programme, launched in 2025 in partnership with DICT, has already trained 150 teachers and reached 300 students across 15 Philippine regions, with the national challenge serving as the competitive apex of that ecosystem. Philippine students have previously demonstrated international robotics competitiveness, winning gold medals at the 12th Robotics Championship International Competition in Romania in 2024 against teams from 15 countries. The UC SHS win positions Cordillera as an active contributor to the Philippines' national STEM talent pipeline at the exact moment when robotics and AI engineering skills are becoming central to the country's economic modernization agenda.
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