By Elizabeth Mabrey
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Elizabeth Mabrey
Storming Robots Technology Learning Center
3322 Rt. 22 W., Suite 402, Branchburg, NJ
908-595-1010
[email protected]
www.storming-robots.com
July 3, 2012
The Storming Robots Technology Learning Center proudly announces that its students representing The United States ranked high in the recent RoboCupJunior World Championship competition in Mexico City from June 18 through June 24. Our NJ techno-wizards, all rookies, performed brilliantly against an intensely competitive field of teams from countries around the globe including China, Japan, and Germany.
The World Championship competition is divided into Major and Junior Leagues. The Storming Robots of New Jersey competed in the Junior League which is composed of teams of primary and secondary school students.
In the RoboDance competition, the Storming Robots’ Team Zulu won the Super Team World Championship, along with teams from Mexico and Germany! Team Zulu is composed of Colleen McConnell (age 11) of Skillman, Sanjana Sastry (age 11) of Edison, and Brenna Herrity (age 13) of Yardville. Colleen McConnell explained, “Language was our biggest struggle…We had to use GoogleTranslate . We worked throughout the four days there from day to night. In the end, we all had a great time and benefited from the experience. ” Congratulations Team Zulu!
For the soccer match, the Storming Robots’ team “The Dimensions” won the Third Place in the World Championship! Members are their captain, Luke Dai (age 13) of Belle Mead, Vadym Glushkov (age 13) of Belle Mead, and Sunny Aggarwal (age 14) of Bridgewater. Luke’s mother exclaimed, “Luke worked till almost one a.m. in the morning, and I had to make him go to bed.”
The RoboRescue competition is divided into two events: Rescue A and Rescue B. The Storming Robots entered teams for both events: SR-chitect for Rescue B and the Cheezpuffz for Rescue A. Both teams held their own in the Rescue competitions.
SR-chitect, made up of Michael Xie (age 13) of Warrensville and Andre Gou (age 14) of Watchung, finished tenth out of twenty teams. Michael Xie’s mother proclaimed, “I’m so proud of Michael for his persistency in continuing improving throughout the games, and ability to figure out such intricate problems even when it seemed to be impossible to others.”
The CheezPuffz, made up of 3 members from Basking Ridge, Ashley Yang (age 13), Sergei Zakharin (age 14) and William Cui (age 13), ranked twentieth out of thirty four teams. William’s mother added, “Proud to watch these CheezPuffz kids continuously worked as a team, discussed, and came up with actions and execution three days in a row.”
All of the challenge at The WorldRoboCupJunior require students to delve deeply into their expertise in robotics programming, their algorithmic thinking skills, and their devotion to exploring the future of artificial intelligence. “For these young folks to possess the capacity in accomplishing this is truly remarkable,” said Storming Robots Director, Elizabeth Mabrey.”
This particular competition stands apart from other robotics events held in the United States since the World Tournament takes place in conjunction with world renowned RoboCup. All challenges require 100% full autonomy. The event is attended by hundreds of research scientists and engineers from around the world. The opportunity to interface with researchers and to watch their amazing robotics apparatuses in action truly sparks inspiration and interest in engineering among these children.
Storming Robots is the sole year-round robotics institution focused on Grades school students located in Branchburg, NJ. Since 2005, Storming Robots has demonstrated its success in strengthening the engineering minds of grade schools students, e.g. its high school students also won the World Space autonomous competition, ZeroRobotics, held by NASA and MIT in the early 2012. Website: www.stormingrobots.com.
#### 580 words ####
Photos attached:
– USA waving by Michael Xie.png : from Basking Ridge Michael Xie from Warrensville waved USA flag at the event.
I would like to also suggest 2nd one: it is about a friendship signature wall filled with signature of championship participants from 30+ countries. Please email me if you are interested in this picture.

