Cherry Hill High School East is proving to be a powerhouse in robotics. In Garden State Robotics’ first qualifying event for the VEX Robotics 2011–12 season, all three East teams ranked in the top six positions for the majority of the qualifying matches on Nov. 19 in Bridgewater. Two of East’s teams, Black Tie Robotics (Team 2616B) and Calcifer (Team 2616C), were captains of top-ranked alliance teams for the elimination matches.
Army of Two (Team 2616) was on the event-winning alliance, with Team 677 from Montclair and 30B from Montville, which took home the Tournament Champion award and qualified them for the National Championship. The Army of Two was recognized with an additional honor of the Judges’ Award.
Cherry Hill East will host the second qualifying tournament on Dec. 17.
The qualifying rounds start at 9 a.m. and elimination rounds are expected to begin at 12:30 p.m. The award ceremony is tentatively set for 3 p.m.
The community is welcome to watch teams from New Jersey and Pennsylvania battle it out in this season’s game, called Gateway.
Each year, VEX Robotics creates a new game to present different challenges that include 30 seconds of autonomous (computer programmed) control and two and a half minutes of driver control.
To prepare for the competition, students work together after school to design and build robots that can quickly and efficiently solve specific challenges with various obstacles, using the VEX Robotics Design System.
For more information and sponsorship opportunities, contact Bethany Lau at [email protected].
