WHRHS Robotics: RoboWarriors Reach Quarterfinals in Montgomery Competition
By Dave Schlingloff
The Watchung Hills Regional High School robotics team (aka Team 41 RoboWarriors) made it to the quarterfinal round of the playoffs hosted by Montgomery High School this past weekend in their second competition of 2018.
This year’s competition is called FIRST Power Up. The theme is that the robots are trapped in a video arcade game and must place power cubes in strategic places to gain enough power to escape. Each match has three robots in one alliance competing against three robots in an opposing alliance. The robots are randomly assigned to the alliances for each match, and must use cooperation and strategy to win.
On Saturday in the qualification matches, the team performed well and ended the day with a 5-3 record. At the end of the qualification matches on Sunday, Team 41 had a 7-5 record and was ranked an impressive 10th out of the 39 teams competing. For the playoffs, they were selected to compete with robots from Montgomery and Somerville in their alliance. Though they performed very well in the quarterfinal round in two exciting matches, it was not enough to defeat the opposing alliance.
Team 41 once again won the Innovation in Control Award for best robot control station. They had previously won this award in their first competition in Mt. Olive two weeks ago, and it was judged to be the best controller once again in Montgomery. The team had worked hard in build season to create a great controller with the goal of winning this award, and were thrilled when it was announced that they had won it again.
Overall, it was another great competition for the RoboWarriors. Their current ranking in the Mid-Atlantic Region puts them in a position to advance to the regional competition at Lehigh University April 5-7, but they will not know for sure if they qualified until after the remaining district competitions are completed this coming weekend.