NightHawk Robotics Taking all 3 Teams to World Championships

The following is a news release from Kevin Bradley, Robotics Club adviser at Murrieta Valley High School:

For the first time in our history all three Murrieta Valley High School Robotics teams will be attending the World Championships!

Our very own Team 569A will be defending its World Championship Title!

Season Highlights

This past Saturday the NightHawk Robotics Club wrapped up its first-ever league appearance. After travelling to Hesperia four times for 30 qualifying matches and the playoffs, the results are in:

Programming Skills Champion – Our very own Team 569B

Amaze Award – Team 569B

Inspire Award – Our very own Team 569C

Two Tournament Finalist Awards – Team 569B and 569C

All three teams had a great day this past Saturday. Our very own Team 569A had its best showing to date making it to the tournament semifinals and nearly beating the eventual tournament champions. 

Team 569B and 569C who were teamed up together made it to the finals and were narrowly defeated in three matches in the best of three format. It was a great day and a strong showing with three fierce robots near the top of the leaderboard out of 52 teams who were in the league.

Some other highlights worth noting:

• NHRC was invited to a demo during the Mayor of Murrieta’s State of the City speech. The Robotics Club and its accomplishments were mentioned three to four times during the mayor's speech. 

• The Robotics Club had a feature article in the city of Murrieta’s magazine, see attached pic.

• For the first time in our history ALL THREE TEAMS have qualified to compete at this year’s World Championships.  Keep in mind there are more than 7,300 teams registered worldwide and only 400 high school spots are available to get into the world championships. It is an amazing honor just to be able to attend.

• Team 569A are the reigning WORLD CHAMPS and will be defending their title this year from April 18^th-20^th at the Anaheim Convention Center.

• Team 569C won the Los Angeles Regional Tournament qualifying them for World Championships.

• Team 569B had the top Programming Skills score in the world as of Dec. 15, 2012 and ended up 20th in the world. The top 30 teams in the world qualify for World Championships.

• Many of NHRC’s former alumni are out volunteering while at colleges across the country.  In the pics above you will find Chris Patton, Eric Hamilton, and Masha Polyakova who attend Cal Poly SLO (Chris and Eric) and Arizona State University (Masha) who have volunteered to work at robotics events in their college towns. These kids continue to amaze even when far away from Murrieta. 

• Last but certainly not least we would like to invite each and every one of you to come check us out in action at the Anaheim Convention Center April 18-20. It is a true spectacle to watch this many students take over a space as a large as the Anaheim Convention Center. Not to mention everyone is gunning for us as reigning World Champs!

Teams and Members

Team 569A (Jordan Niell, Erik Ruiz, Harrison Chea, Matthew DeNava, Grady Quinn, Roger Scherer, Jordan Petersen, Vishakh Pillai, Ruvan Jayasinghe, Cooper Helms, Connor Crawford, Dario Fenaroli, Royce Sato, Darren Wang, Camille Maxwell)

Team 569 B (Michael Berna, Mason Coram, Michael Riewer, Eric Jimenez, Kevin Cruz, Alex Kehrli, Kyle Kirtland, Isaac Padilla, Ben Boardman, Devon Brotherton)

Team 569 C (Devin Bailey, Jenna Patton, Ryan Berger, Bryce Longacre, Noah Ekstrom, William Davidian, Remy Doucet, Bryan Doney, Chance Tran, Steven Vidaure, Matt Woods, Toren Schurb)