Turbokid sweeps STEMIA junior high drone racing tournament undefeated

Turbokid ran the table at STEMIA SW Junior High, winning the school’s first FPV Drone Racing Tournament undefeated after nine lunch-break rounds and taking home a small drone as the prize. The finish gave the junior-high series a real competitive climax, not just a demonstration flight, and it did it in one of the most ordinary windows in school life: lunch.

That timing is part of what makes the result stand out. STEMIA built the event around head-to-head racing through drone gates during Thursday lunch periods, using BETA FPV drones and letting students choose between flying in FPV goggles or by line of sight. The setup lowered the barrier to entry without softening the competition. It still demanded clean lines, control under pressure and the ability to navigate a course fast enough to matter in direct matchups.

The tournament was the latest step in a program that has been building for more than two years. STEMIA launched a drone racing club on March 14, 2024 and said it would field six Cetus FPV drones for students, along with a DJI Mavic Mini. By September 2024, the lunchtime Drone Club was meeting in the Maker Space. On January 13, 2026, the school added a pilot UAV options course for Grade 9 students, and by April 10, 2026, the intramural tournament was already underway on Thursdays during lunch. Turbokid’s unbeaten run was the first champion-making payoff for that pipeline.

The broader context shows why that matters. MultiGP says it formed its STEM Alliance in 2020 with Drones in School and the Collegiate Drone Racing Association, later adding Youth Drone Sports Championships and Advanced Vertical Robotics in 2023. MultiGP says it now has more than 30,000 registered pilots and 500 active chapters worldwide, proof that drone racing is no longer a fringe pastime but a structured sport with real feeder systems. The Unified Scholastic Drone Racing Association has pushed a similar student-first model, calling itself the first and only hybrid drone racing league created exclusively for students and building its 2026 Winter/Spring season around seed rounds, qualifiers, semifinals and a live-streamed final.

Turbokid’s win also carried a creative edge that extends beyond racing. The student is already known for drone cinematography on YouTube, which puts flying skill and media-making in the same lane. That combination is the deeper takeaway from STEMIA’s tournament: the earliest pipeline for future FPV racers may now run through a lunch period, but the skills it rewards are anything but casual. Precision, adaptability and the ability to turn flight into both sport and story made this junior-high event feel like the start of something bigger.