By Amy Batista, Special Writer
Hightstown High School’s Mercury robotics team will be competing in the world championships next week after placing second in the FIRST Mid-Atlantic district championship last weekend at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
“We’re very excited to be competing next week at the championship event,” said team advisor Chris Gregory in an email.
“The top 60 out of 121 teams get invited to compete in this event and they compete for up to 20 spots at the FIRST Championship event in St. Louis,” said Mr. Gregory. “We have qualified for the FIRST World Championship.”
The FIRST World Championship is being held in St. Louis, Missouri from April 27-30.
“We will be competing with the top 600 teams of nearly 3,000 from around the world,” said Mr. Gregory. “We have quite a bit to fix with our robot’s drive train, changing out chains, tensioners, and wheels, but we should be able to do that in about two hours.”
The team has around 60 active students ranging in grades 9-12 on the team.
“This is a completely extra-curricular activity, so students opt to do this like they would a sport or band,” he said. “They put hundreds of hours in during our six-week build season, which runs from Jan. 9 through Feb. 23.”
Mr. Gregory said that each year in January, FIRST releases a design challenge, where teams around the world get only six weeks to design, build, and program a robot.
“In this year’s game, FIRST Stronghold robots must cross and breach defenses while trying to capture their opponents towers by launching ‘boulders,’ foam balls, at it,” he said.
Mercury’s robot, named “X4,” because this is the team’s 14th year of participating in FIRST.
“It has a very advanced vision tracking system that uses a camera and gyro sensor to help line the robot up with the target from any distance on the field,” he said.
Mr. Gregory thanked the team’s sponsors, which include Bristol-Myers Squibb, nrg Energy, DoDSTEM, J. Rupp Construction, East Windsor Education Association, East Windsor Regional School District, Conair and Shiseido.
