Westfield High School Hosts Central New Jersey Robotics Tournament

Earlier this month, February 5, Westfield High School hosted the Central New Jersey FIRST Tech Challenge robotics competition with over 20 skilled teams in the state. The 3 Westfield robotics teams hailing from Westfield High School, That Hertz, The Flux Capacitors, and Positive Charged competed fiercely at their home meet.
The Flux Capacitors had prepared greatly and came into the the tournament strong. Unfortunately, their robot ran into issues and experienced various technical difficulties. The team, however, still played excellent defense and tapped into the best strategy possible, which included scoring the beacons and defending them. This strategy worked consistently and allowed the team to still successfully place impressively in the top half of the competitive pool. Overall, the team’s hard work and effort paid off and the team is determined to better their robot for future scrimmages in the postseason.
Similarly, That Hertz was successful on the field by using their beacon scoring mechanism and playing defensively to legally block other teams. The team faced slight technical errors with their capball lifting mechanism but was also still able to place well within the top half of teams. That Hertz’s resiliency and dedication throughout the season despite obstacles still paid off and the knowledge they took away from the competition is invaluable and will better prepare them for the challenges to come in the next season.
Positive Charge was able to defeat teams on the field consistently with their skilled driver and offensive as well as defensive strategy. Although their lift mechanism was not functioning properly, the team utilized their current resources and had a reliable autonomous that parked the robot in the center vortex and pushed the capball. During teleop, after scoring a beacon, they maneuvered their robot to legally push other teams so they could protect it. While the rules about restricting the movement of opponents’ robots are are strict, teams can still play defensively with great success vigilantly following the guidelines in place. The team was ranked in the top 10 and despite not being on the winning alliance, was still able to incur great victories. The judges announced that Positive Charge had been awarded the Think Award, an award the team won at a previous meet, for their organized and detailed Engineering Notebook. The Think Award, while prestigious, is not an award that allows a team to advance to the next level of competition. However, because many teams were apart of the winning alliance that allows them to advance automatically, and won other awards that allow them to advance (Inspire Award, PTC Design Award, etc), the overlap enabled judges to select teams who won other awards. Positive Charge was apart of the handful of teams advancing to the State Championships on Sunday, February 26 at West Windsor-Plainsboro North High School.
Positive Charge is excited to take on the many talented FTC teams at the state level and is thankful for all of the support from the Westfield community and appreciates the immense dedication of The Flux Capacitors and That Hertz and their help during building and coding sessions.
The Flux Capacitors and That Hertz will not be continuing with their seasons but have ambitious plans for the future to recruit new members and host workshops in the spring and summertime to prepare them for a longer, more competitive season next year. These teams are primarily made up of seniors that just wrapped up their passion-filled high school robotics journeys-an emotional moment for everyone.
Vivek Sreenivasan, a senior member of The Flux Capacitors reflected, “As a result of being apart of the club, I have decided to pursue a career in computer science and business administration.” He aspires to further develop his future in the field of technology and will take the valuable skills and knowledge he learned in his years of robotics to accomplish his goals. Vivek has been instrumental in robot programming as well as organizing numerous, highly successful outreaches for the entire club for years. He has left big shoes to fill as the teams strategize ways to involve the community more next year without the aid of the current senior members and his expertise.
The Westfield teams graciously thank the community for volunteering to help set up the meet. Without the help of the community, the competition would not have run so successfully. The meet was also tremendously successful in fundraising, raising over $700 for the club to invest in new parts, better technology, and future registrations. The teams also thank the many community members that attended the exciting competition to support the Westfield robotics club. It was a great opportunity to spread the teams’ passion for STEM and engineering. The teams were grateful for the opportunity to demonstrate their robots and hard work to many children and inspire them to join the FIRST and STEM communities.
The First Lego League (FLL) team from Jefferson Elementary School, Legorio, also had the opportunity to demonstrate their robot at the competition and spread their wonder and growing passion for engineering and problem solving with the community. The high school teams were able to learn from the elementary schoolers and were inspired by their immense pride and love for their designs and work. The event not only spread youths’ passion for STEM, but connected the community closer together and bonded over the many successes of the Westfield robotics club and the many more to come.