Huntington Robotics is Spectacular at Hudson Valley

Huntington Robotics turned in a standout performance at the FIRST Robotics Hudson Valley regional competition last weekend. The Blue Devils finished No. 2 in a field of 60 teams.

The Blue Devils’ robot, Stewart, was spectacular. “This year‘s competition is called ReefScape and is part of FIRST Robotics current theme of underwater,” explained junior Jordana Boxer. “In this game robots must score PVC pipes called coral onto metal poles in the center of the field called the reef. Then the robots must remove kickballs called algae from the reef and score them into a processor on the ground.”

The beginning of the game saw the robot operating based on computer code rather than at the direction of a human driver. The remainder of the game saw the Blue Devils’ drive team operating Stewart. During the final 20 seconds of the game, the robot has to be able to climb onto a metal cage and pull itself off the ground in order to earn even more points.

“At the Hudson Valley regional, the first day was for practice, giving our robotics team a chance to drive the robot on the field and get a better understanding of the game,” Ms. Boxer said.

The next day featured qualification matches to determine the team’s ranking going into the playoff rounds. “Huntington Robotics was able to secure the 20th place going into playoffs due to the amazing work of our drive team,” Ms. Boxer said.

Huntington’s drive team is comprised of driver Oliver Gerberg, operator Wynne Franciscovich, coach Jaipreet Singh, “human player” Jake Chiclacos and technician Benjamin Singh.

The highlight of the weekend competition was the playoffs, which saw the top eight teams choosing two robots each to compete alongside them.

“These three robots create an alliance and they compete against other alliances throughout the double elimination bracket,” explained Ms. Boxer. Huntington Robotics was picked for the second alliance and worked alongside teams from Kings Park and Plainview-Old Bethpage.

“Our alliance was able to make it into the final match,” Ms. Boxer said. “This is a huge accomplishment for Huntington Robotics. As we have not made it this far since 2016. While we were unable to win in the finals, we did become the finalists of the whole competition. This is an amazing achievement.”

Huntington Robotics will compete again in two weeks at Hofstra University.