Students from several Mercer County high schools are set to compete in the Mid-Atlantic Robotics Championship.
The competition is scheduled to begin April 10 at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. Winners of the District Championship are set to advance to the FIRST Robotics World Championship set for St. Louis, Mo..
Students from Hopewell Township, Hamilton Township, Robbinsville and West Windsor are challenged to the Aerial Assist.
Each robot competes in a three-team alliance against a similar alliance in a game to throw 25-inch balls into goals of varying point values over a two-minute, 30-second period.
The Hamilton West Robotics, which formed seven years ago, is headed to Lehigh. The team advanced to the quarterfinals at both the Lenape-Seneca and Springside-Chestnut Hill district qualifying events. Hamilton West students took home the Motorola Quality Award.
Team SPIKE is set to represent Hopewell Valley Central High School. This season, they won the district qualifying event at Bridgewater-Raritan and made it to the quarterfinals at Springside-Chestnut Hill event. SPIKE also earned the Xerox Creativity Award.
Flux Core, a team of 18 Nottingham High School students, are set to compete at the district championship. The team made it to the quarterfinals at the Lenape-Seneca event and semifinals at the Bridgewater-Raritan qualifier.
Flux Core formed eight years ago. They won the Gracious Professionalism Award at the Bridgewater-Raritan event.
A team of 56 students from Robbinsville High School, called Nemesis, are also competing.
Formed seven years ago, Nemesis has enjoyed a successful season, going to the finals at the Lenape-Seneca district qualifying event and winning the Hatboro-Horsham district qualifier.
They also took home the District Chairman’s Award and the Entrepreneur Award this year.
One hundred and four students are set to represent West Windsor-Plainsboro High Schools North and South.
Team MidKnight Inventors got its start in a garage nine years ago and has since grown into a well-recognized enterprise. Today, the team mentors younger students through its FIRST Outreach program and has an active international outreach program to start and mentor new teams.
Each robotics team is structured like a miniature business, with committees covering software, hardware, marketing, finance and more.
Teams are given the same basic components to build their robots but no blueprint is provided. The result is a diverse collection of cleverly-crafted machines.
Founded in 2010, Mid-Atlantic Robotics is a non-profit corporation that spans all of Delaware, New Jersey and counties in Pennsylvania from Harrisburg eastward. MAR is affiliated with FIRST Robotics, a not-for-profit organization founded in 1989 that aims to inspire youth and promote interest in science and technology through robotic competitions that involve 2,500 teams and 58,000 students in the U.S. and around the world.
More information is online at midatlanticrobotics.com.
