Hopewell Valley Central High School’s Robotics team triumphed in a district robotics competition at The College of New Jersey on March 17, taking first place with a robot they designed, built and operated.
On March 24, in another district competition held in Tabernacle, they were awarded the Delphi Excellence in Engineering Award for the design of their robot.
Based on their current points score, the team will go on the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship on April 12 and13 at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where the 50 top-scoring teams from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware will face off.
The 14 highest scoring teams from the region will go on to the FIRST World Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, from April 25-27.
At the USFIRST Robotics Competition at TCNJ, 37 area high school teams competed with their robots in a game called “Ultimate Ascent”. Robots tossed Frisbees into goals high on a wall and got points for each successful attempt. At the end of each match, robots could climb the rungs of a pyramid to earn extra points. For the final round of the TCNJ competition, the HoVal team formed an alliance with teams from Piscataway and Bound Brook high schools. Their alliance triumphed, scoring the most points and snaring them the top prize.
”Our mechanism for shooting the Frisbees was one of the most accurate of any we saw there,” said Ed Petrillo, a retired pharmaceutical chemist who has been a longtime mentor of the team and is the chairman of Mid-Atlantic Robotics, the regional affiliate of USFIRST. “The computer program and shooting mechanism were completely designed and built by members of the team.”
At the Tabernacle competition, the local team received the Excellence in Engineering Award for the design of the shooting mechanism, which also helped their robot climb the pyramid.
HoVal’s Robotics Team is coached by science teacher John Delaney and has numerous community mentors such as Dr. Petrillo.
USFIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) sponsors competitions at various age levels designed to develop science, engineering and technology skills and leadership in young people. (See www.usfirst.org for more information.)
NOTE: Team members not shown in the photo are: Joe Nolfo (mentor), Jim Andrews (mentor), Michelle Miller, Zachary Williams, Ian Goldsmith, Sam Lowe, Grady Meyer, Nick Bates, Anthony Hou and Joe Schank
