“Alden Knights” Robotics Team Battles in Corning
December 7, 2015
Our High School Robotics Team, the “Alden Knights”, travelled to Corning, NY on Sunday for their Rookie Competition as a part of FIRST Tech Challenge. Nine team members were able to make the journey and eight others helped in various ways during the last 2 months of preparation. The team meets several times per week and put in many long hour to design, build, program, and test the robots. Many of the Robot’s parts are completely unique and required teammates to get creative with their design, use Computer Aided Drafting to draw the parts, and then print it with the 3D printer.
The Alden Knights proudly earned 4th place overall in a field of 24 registered participants. The excitement was incredible during the entire 9 hour competition which had several phases. First students go in front of judges and present their Robot along with their Engineering Journal that documents the planning, design, and fabrication process. The Robot was then analyzed to ensure it met all the material, dimensional, electronic and software requirements. Then the Alden Knight competed in 5 rounds of the “RES Q” competition. In each round, they aligned with another team and competed against two other teams. This format fosters teamwork and collaboration as the teams must quickly develop a strategy with their alliance partner to optimize scoring performance. Teams came from Pennsylvania, New York City, and other regions of our state.
The proudest moment for the day came when Alden won the “Motivate Award” for their evidence of dedication to Community Outreach and promotion of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) in the Alden Community. The team created a video (see WACS News) which demonstrated their work to support the Primary School PTO’s Mother-Son Maker Faire event by planning and hosting rooms dedicated to Robotics, Coding, and Design. The team also took advantage of the opportunity to share ideas with engineers during the high school’s recent S.T.E.A.M. Career Day. Lastly, they have plans in place for working to promote Robotics in multiple ways in the Alden Middle School.
Congratulations to the Alden Knights!
Joshua Wardak • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:27 pm
That is really awesome. Congratulations on the victory!
Ben Kubiak • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:23 pm
I think that this contest was well worth it. the experience of doing this could be really helpful. I believe the robotics team will be able to bring in new students to help with future contests. I do hope that in the future there will be more clubs and activities in the school just like this.
Adam Czech • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:12 pm
Congratulations Alden Knights on earning 4th place on your first Robotics Competition and for earning the “Motivate Award” for your evidence of dedication. I think that it is really cool how the members of the Robotics Team made different things for the younger kids to do during the PTO’s mother-son Maker Faire. You have hosted rooms in the Primary School dedicated to Robotics, Coding, and Design. The kids of the Primary School will now have a better understanding of what they might want to do in High School, College or for life. I just wish that I had those resources when i was younger to experience the Robotics.
Jocelyn Borynski • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:11 pm
Congratulations to the Alden Robotics Team. You did a great job at the FTC competition in Corning. Keep all of your hard work and determination, and great job on teaching the Primary school mothers and sons about robotics the memory of this will last a life time!
Jimmy Jablonski • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:10 pm
I am really upset, i wish i could have gone with the team. Good job you guys, I am glad that I got to work with you before and it was very satisfying seeing the robot succeed. After all the work, time and effort that people put into the robot and see it do so well is amazing. The Motivate Award, that is awesome, it is great to win an award, especially when it helps more than just the team, but the community as well.
Good Job Guys!!!
Owen Kissell • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:10 pm
Congrats to The Alden Knights. They recently participated in the FIRST Robotics Competition. They did a great job by getting involved in the community and schools by teaching kids from High School all the way to Elementary School on Robotics. Their work has paid off by placing 4th place. That’s pretty good for team/school that’s never participated in an event like this. All of the photos and videos show their dedication and hard work and why they will succeed. I did not participate in this event, but I’m sure they had a blast though.
Paul Feitshans • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:08 pm
I think it was good.
Zach Varshay • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:07 pm
The event was a huge success and everyone is happy to have participated and receive fourth place overall among all the contestants in the competition. All the time put into the robot worked out and was worth it since we ended up doing so well. The night when we went to the Alden Primary School was a good success as well. We spent a decent amount of time preparing for that time to come. The kids seemed to be interested in what they were learning. It turned out pretty well overall. I think that this team as a whole since we began and everyone who participated in either of these events completed a good goal and they can be happy with the accomplishments.
Kerri Wilson • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:05 pm
Great job Alden Robotics Team! You did fantastic at your first competition and I am so proud!
Keep up the great work and thank you for giving the students at the Primary school a new experience that they will remember for a long time!
Matthew Tolsma • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:04 pm
Me as participate of this competition i thought that it was very cool to compete against team that are from all over New York. Going into the competition i thought that our team would have failed and would not even make it in the top 8. But after 3 games of competing we Jumped from 7 to first place out of the 16 different teams that were their.
Tim Kosmowski • Dec 7, 2015 at 12:04 pm
I loved how they are giving kids the opportunity to experience robotics and 3d printing at a young age. We were not introduced to these programs until late. The knowledge they will gain at this age means that they will be at a very advanced level by the time they are our age.
Joe King • Dec 7, 2015 at 11:59 am
Congratulations to the Men and Women who participate in the robotics team! It is very impressive to be in the top 5 out of 24 teams. What the they do is very difficult and it is a job well done.
Chris Greenwald • Dec 7, 2015 at 11:58 am
Great job. Looks like everyone had a good time doing this. Hard work pays off in the end.
Zach Gabbey • Dec 7, 2015 at 11:56 am
It looks interesting. Good job in the competition. I looks like a bunch of hard work paid off for them. Great job Robotics team.
Nathan Nuwer • Dec 7, 2015 at 11:56 am
Congratulations to the Alden Knights. Unfortunate final few rounds but great result, way to come out strong through the gates. Go out and grab the next few results.
Joseph Wallace • Dec 7, 2015 at 11:55 am
Looks cool. And nice job guys. Very interesting video.
Sara Pasternack • Dec 7, 2015 at 11:53 am
Since I was there I will talk about my favorite memory of the competition. I really enjoyed talking to the members of Team Tardis and meeting lots of new people. It was amazing to see our young team do so well against schools who have been doing this for years. I am looking forward to our Rochester competition in a couple weeks and believe that we are capable of doing much more than what we accomplished in Corning.