By Grady Meyer
After a disappointing outing in its first competition of the season, Team 293 SPIKE, the robotics team from Hopewell Valley Central High School, took home first place in its second meet, the Bridgewater-Raritan Regional event held March 29 and 30.
With that victory, 293 SPIKE earned a spot at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championships at Lehigh University, which began April 10. There SPIKE fared pretty well, finishing 22nd out of 55 teams, though not advancing to the national competition.
SPIKE is one of thousands of high school robotics teams worldwide that compete in a program known as FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). The FIRST Robotics Competition gives teams a new game every year, and just six weeks in which to design and build the robots to play the game. Last year, SPIKE qualified for the FRC world championships in St. Louis, finishing in the top 25 percent of all teams.
This year’s FRC game is called “Aerial Assault.” The game requires the robots to shoot large exercise balls into goals and over a six-foot high truss, as well as pass the ball to two other robots in their “alliance” for extra points.
At all competitions, teams are randomly placed in different alliances for each match in qualifying. Then, before the finals —- the elimination rounds —- the top eight teams each choose two partners to join their alliance for the finals.
SPIKE’s first outing of the season was the MAR FIRST Robotics Springside Chestnut Hill District Competition, in Philadelphia, where 293 was clobbered in the qualifying rounds, finishing 31st out of the 34 teams with a 3-9 win-loss record. SPIKE had, however, achieved itself a ranking of 7th in points scored under operator control, so it was selected by the number 7 seed Team 486, the Positronic Panthers (of Wallingford, Pa.) to be in their alliance, along with Team 56, R.o.B.B.E. (of Bound Brook). SPIKE ultimately lost both of its matches in the quarterfinals.
The team turned things around two weeks later at the MAR FIRST Robotics Bridgewater-Raritan District Competition. The team dominated in the qualifying rounds, finishing in 3rd, with a 9-3 record. HoVal’s 293 selected Teams 4361 (Roxbotix, of Roxbury) and 193 (MORT Beta, one of two teams from Mount Olive) for its alliance.
The team then continued to dominate into the quarters and semis. However, in the final seconds of Match 2 of the Semis, SPIKE (the robot) sustained serious damage when it took a hard blow from a competitor. The resulting foul gave SPIKE’s alliance the points it needed to win, but left the robot inoperable, with a blown power board.
Time for another comeback. Huddled around their robot on the sidelines, and using a spare power board donated by another team, students and adult mentors from Team 293 set to work, dismantling part of the robot and replacing the board.
“The kids were amazing in the pit,” said HoVal Coach John Delaney, who teaches astronomy, earth science, electricity and field ecology at the high school. “They showed grace under pressure.” He explained that the team’s adult mentors, all engineers, were not get involved with the repair, but rather left it in the trusty hands of the students.In the meantime, SPIKE’s teammates were required to play the first match of the Finals at a 2-on-3 disadvantage. Despite this, they won the match. Within 20 minutes, SPIKE brought its robot back to competitive shape, and rejoined its alliance for the final two games to take the championship.
The victory meant the team had collected enough victories to go to the Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship, held at Lehigh University April 10–12. Team 293 also won the Creativity Award at the Bridgewater meet, thanks in part to its carbon fiber parts which, like the rest of the robot, were designed and fabricated by HoVal students.
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