The team earned the Judge’s Award at the Cape May competition
The Washington Township High School Engineering & Robotics Club’s VEX Robotics competed against 24 other teams from across New Jersey at Cape May Technical School. They placed 15th, but earned the Judges’ Award — recognition from the judges for special accomplishments — for their efforts.
WTHS students have been working on building and programming the robot since this past fall. The robot competed in a skills challenge, composed of both a driver-controlled section (controlled by pit team members Lucas Massimiano, Eric Toreki and Jillian To) and an autonomous programming section, where the robot must move on its own with the help of sensors.
Robots then competed in a two-on-two tournament, where each team is partnered up with a team from another school for each match. This year’s event was called “In the Zone,” and the objective was to get as many cones stacked on goals and mobile goals as possible. The robots also had to move the mobile goals into a five-, 10- or 20-point zone.
This is the second year for the WTHS Engineering and Robotics club competing in VEX, thanks to a grant obtained last year through the Robotics Education & Competition Foundation.
“We also have been truly lucky to be able to practice on our new VEX arena that we were awarded through a WTEF mini grant this past spring,” advisor and team coach Simone Wong said. “With the new arena, students have been able to really practice the autonomous portion, and improve upon their programming and coding skills.”
The competition team from the weekend consisted of senior Dylan Adriano, juniors Caitlin O’Brien, Hetanshu Patel, Eric Toreki, Scott Toreki, Nick Curcio, Niko Figueroa, James Gallicchio and Lucas Massimiano, and freshmen Mason Brewster, Tiffany Andrezzi, Jillian To, Annabel Guo and Jarret Levin. The team’s coaches are mathematics teacher Michael Wong and engineering teacher Simone Wong.
