Wildcats Robotics team punches ticket to state championship

Since its inception just a few years ago, the rise of the Warwick Valley High School Wildcats Robotics team has been meteoric. Last weekend, they qualified to compete in the FIRST Tech Challenge Excelsior Championship in March!

On Saturday, December 6, the members of the Wildcats Robotics team, along with their co-advisors Andrew Warren and Doreen Fothergill, loaded up a robot named Ria and headed to Hopewell Junction for the FIRST Tech Challenge John Jay Qualifier.

The event pitted 28 robotics teams from around the area against one another in bracketed competition. The top four teams at the John Jay Qualifier would move on to the the FTC Excelsior Championship in March. This year’s game, titled Decode, challenged teams to create and program their robots to launch large wiffle balls into goals from about 10 feet away. Each robot had to be able to perform this action when controlled by a driver and autonomously, using programs created by the team. 

The Wildcats were the top seed for playoff rounds after coming in 2nd overall during the qualifying rounds. Ultimately, the Wildcats ended the day as finalists in the competition aspect of the tournament, placing 2nd after the playoff rounds. The Wildcats finished in second place overall, with a score of 21580 points! They were also given two awards, Finalist Alliance (1st team selected), and the prestigious INSPIRE Award (2nd place). They're thrilled to be planning their trip to Mohawk Valley Community College for the Excelsior Championship.

"The Inspire Award is the best award a team can win, and a major compliment to our team!" said a proud Mr. Warren. "What really secured our spot at the state tournament was placing 2nd overall for the Inspire Award, which is given to the most well-rounded team."

The Wildcats Robotics team Programming & Design Captain, James Curtis, said “"I think we had a good, well-rounded performance that definitely gave us a confidence boost going into Utica in March”

The Inspire Award is an adjudicated award that recognizes a teams that embody FIRST values, strong robot performance, and excellent documentation. Winning the award is often a key driver for a teams advancement to regionals and championships. 

“"We were the 2nd best scorer at John Jay and, on top of that, we won the 2nd place Inspire Award, qualifying us for regionals," said team President Owen Machingo. "This showed that we definitely are a team that will be competitive at regionals, and will hopefully make it further this year!”  

Ms. Fothergill couldn't be more proud of how the team continues to learn from its experiences and build on its successes: “Coming off our first-ever trip to states last March, our team carried that momentum into this season with renewed creativity, teamwork, and purpose. From redesigning our engineering notebook, to building our newest robot, Ria, our students have pushed themselves to new levels. Ria made a powerful debut at our first competition of the season, and we couldn’t be prouder of this team’s growth, determination, and spirit!”

Mr. Warren also shared that Ria performed impressively and proved to be a force to be reckoned with in the tournament. Even so, the team of innovators has a new plan in mind. The students are redesigning a new robot for March, and taking a new approach to the challenge. The juniors and sophomores are going to modify Ria and, since the team has already qualified for the championship, they'll be using Ria to practice driving at the next two qualifier events, preparing them for next year.

“Seeing the team’s hard work pay off by securing our second consecutive bid to the regional tournament was so rewarding," said Mr. Warren. "I was very proud that we advanced due not only to having a well-designed robot, but also because of our team’s range and well-roundedness.”

For more awesomeness about the Wildcats Robotics team, refer to this Superintendent's Spotlight about them from last year. And... congratulations to the team! It's an exciting time for the Warwick Valley Wildcats Robotics.