Watchung Hills Robotics Team Reaches Quarterfinals in Mt. Olive Competition
By Dave Schlingloff
In their first competition of 2018, the Watchung Hills Regional High School robotics team (aka Team 41 RoboWarriors) competed well as they made it to the quarterfinal round of the playoffs. The event was hosted by Mt. Olive High School this past weekend and had 40 high schools competing.
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.
Team 41 had to overcome a few technical glitches on the first day of qualification matches, but ended up with a respectable 4-4 record and an overall ranking of 20th out of the 40 teams competing. On the second day, they were selected to compete with robots from Ramsey and Mt. Olive in the playoffs. Though they performed very well in the quarterfinal round in two exciting matches, it was not quite enough to defeat the alliance that ended up winning the Mt. Olive event.
Another highlight was that Team 41 won the Innovation in Control Award for best robot control station. The team had worked hard in build season to create a great controller with the hope that they would win this award, and they were thrilled when it was announced that they won. Overall, it was a great effort by the RoboWarriors and they feel confident going into their next competition in Montgomery in two weeks.