NORTH BRUNSWICK – Forty-two high school-aged FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics teams competed for the 18th year at Brunswick Eruption, hosted by the North Brunswick Township High School’s (NBTHS) FIRST Robotics Competition Championship Team 25 – Raider Robotix.
Teams from around the Tri-State Area and Pennsylvania played for the last time in the 2019 FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) game FIRST Destination: Deep Space as part of the off-season competition. Deep Space game is played by two three-robot alliances against each other. The space-themed game requires the robots to place disks onto space ships and cargo ships, and the robots then race to place cargo (large playground balls) into the ships. During the last 30 seconds of the round, the robots try to climb onto a three-level “habitat” platform to achieve extra points.
The winners of Brunswick Eruption 18 were: Team 2590-Nemesis (Robbinsville), Team 225 TechFire (York, Pennsylvania) and Team 303-The T.E.S.T. Team (Bridgewater/Raritan). The finalists were: Team 694-StuyPulse (New York, New York), Team 747-Flight Crew (Middlesex) and Team 5895-Peddie School Robotics (Hightstown).
Other awards given were: The Gracious Professionalism Award to Team 747; Kumu Award to Team 333 mentor Mike Vilarelle (Team 333-The Megalodons, Brooklyn); the Rising Stars award to two pre-rookie teams – Canucks & Bolts (Team 102, Plainfield) and prerookie Steel Hawks team (Team 2601, Brooklyn); two awards for most shoes and canned
goods collected were both won by Team 806-The Brooklyn Blacksmiths; and finally, the Big Kahuna award went to Ciro Boccio and the entire Linwood custodial staff for helping to make the change of venue from the high school to middle school happen.
In addition to hosting the event at Linwood Middle School on Nov. 9, Raider Robotix collected food items for the North Brunswick Food Bank as well as lightly worn or usable shoes to be recycled to communities that need them.
The 2020 FIRST Robotics Competition season begins on Jan. 4.