Peddie Robotics Brings Home Another Win

Vivian+Sun18

Vivian Sun’18

Elle Grant'18, News Section Editor

The Peddie School Robotics Team returned from their first competition of the year on Saturday, March 25 and brought home a win.

 

Throughout this winter term, the team worked to prepare a new bot for the various tasks it would face this year. A programming section, engineering section and communications section all worked together in preparation for this past weekend.

 

The first day was riddled with programming technical errors, and the team was faced with a nearly last place ranking. Yet, after modifying their code and fixing the errors, the team moved up to ninth place where they were chosen by a higher ranking team to partner in the final rounds. In a surprising, but well deserved twist, the Peddie Robotics team ended the competition by winning 1st place in the region.

 

Team member Joe Yuan ’17, who is widely considered a leader in the program, commented on the strategies used to achieve their success.

 

“We actively adapted our strategies throughout the playoffs to adapt to different opponents. In the end, our transition from a purely offensive strategy to an aggressive defense strategy ultimately got us to the finals,” Yuan said.

 

He continued by reflecting on the future of the team this season.

 

“The team is ecstatic with our win, and is now working hard to iterate for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship. We hope to go far at MAR Champs, and we will work hard to qualify for the FIRST World Championships in April,” Yuan said.

 

The work done this weekend followed a successful rookie year under faculty member Scott Meredith’s leadership as well as leadership within the team. At their first competition ever, they won the “highest rookie seed” (for the first-year team ranked the highest out of all the rookie teams at that event) and “rookie all-star” (the best first-year team at that event) awards. At the second, they won the entire event, and thus were the “district event winner”, while also winning the “industrial design award sponsored by General Motors” for excellent industrial design.

Then the team went to mid-Atlantic regionals at Lehigh University where they ranked 5th out of the top 60 teams in the mid-Atlantic region, and won the “highest rookie seed” award. To top their incredibly successful rookie year, they went to the Robotics World Championships in St. Louis, Missouri. They were a championship subdivision finalist, championship division highest rookie seed, and won the “Judges Award” as well.

In the coming weeks, the robotics team will continue attending competitions working towards the ultimate goal of success at the World Championships.