Hopewell Valley Central High School robotics team poses with their robot.
Hopewell Valley Central High School robotics team, SPIKE, took home first place in its second meet of the season.
Their victory at the Bridgewater-Raritan regional event on March 30 earned them a spot at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship at Lehigh University.
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 asks teams to design and build a robot for a new game every year.
Last year, SPIKE qualified for the FRC world championships in St. Louis, Mo., finishing in the top 25 percent of all teams.
This year’s FRC game, titled Aerial Assault, challenges teams 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 competitions, teams are randomly assigned an alliance for each qualifying match. Prior to the finals, the top eight teams choose alliances for the elimination rounds.
SPIKE’s first outing of the season was the MAR FIRST Robotics Springside Chestnut Hill District Competition in Philadelphia. The team finished 31 out of the 34 in the qualification rounds, with a 3-9 record.
Despite their record, SPIKE achieved a 7th rank in points scored under operator control and 7th seed Positronic Panthers of Wallingford, Pa., selected them to be in their alliance with R.O.B.B.E. of Bound Brook.
The alliance ultimately lost both of its matches in the quarterfinals.
The team turned around two weeks later at the Bridgewater-Raritan District competition.
SPIKE ranked third in the qualifying rounds with a 9-3 record.
They selected Roxbotix of Roxbury and MORT Beta from Mount Olive for its alliance.
The team continued to dominate into the quarter- and semi-final rounds. However, in the second semi-final match, SPIKE’s robot took a hard hit from a competitor and sustained serious damage. The resulting foul gave SPIKE’s alliance the points it needed to win, but left the robot inoperable.
Using a spare part donated by another team, students and adult mentors to work, dismantling part of the robot and replacing its power board. In the meantime, SPIKE’s teammates were required to play the first match of the finals at a 2-on-3 disadvantage, and 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.
With this victory, the team collected enough victories to go to the Mid-Atlantic Robotics FRC Region Championship, which is scheduled for April 10-12 at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
SPIKE 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 Hopewell Valley students.
