Robotics Tournament at Columbia HS - Nov 15

The 5th Annual "Robo-CATastophe" Robotics Qualifier will be held at Columbia HS on Sunday. November 15. We expect 36 teams to attend, teams from all over NJ and some from NY and even PA.

This is always a big event! Throughout the day over 1000 people come through and watch the future unfold in front of them. Parents bring their kids and the kids get a real kick out of it.

The tournament will be held in the Main Gym with three separate playing fields set up. Teams set up in the two cafeterias. Parents set up food service in the cafeteria and snacks sales by the gym. Parents and kids can wander through the cafeteria and talk to any of the teams -- the team members from all the teams are extremely polite and are more than happy to talk to the kids!

We have two teams participating -- our Varsity team (Team #4102) and JV team (Team #5332) -- and our two younger teams will be the "staff" to the tournament officials (Freshmen - Team 7959, and Middle School - Team 9563). You can come and take a gander at the team clubroom where we have set up a practice field.

The teams will be going to all of the schools on field trips to promote robotics. First up is Maplewood Middle on Tuesday; following week is SOMS. Then on to the elementary schools.

Please consider attending and bring the kids!!!

And this is a link to an outstanding video the team made back in 2011 when it won the NJ State Championship and took 2nd place in the World Championships in St. Louis. The video is called "iterative design process" -- it exemplifies exactly what engineers do -- try something and if it doesn't work, change it until it does work. This is what we teach and what we demand of the teams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhMUcOrYecc

is this open to the general public too?

Yes, all of these are open to the public for viewing. No admission charges. Just show up! There is a lunch break when the teams are pretty much just in the cafeterias and testing their robots on the practice fields and the gym.

If anyone is "techie" in the sense of engineering, software, robotics et al, US FIRST's FTC Division can always use volunteers to assist in Judging and Field Operations. If you are interested, PL me and I can hook you up with the coordinator for New Jersey. Some MOLers have done this in the past at our qualifiers. You might find it a good way to get involved in a worldwide organization encouraging young kids in software and robotics.

Update on the huge Qualifier at Columbia on Sunday, November 15.

We expect 36 teams. They will come from all over North Jersey and Central Jersey, including Millburn!

For those who enjoy robotics please come by, see what our kids are doing and see how robotics has taken hold across the District, the State and the Nation. These kids -- our kids and the kids from other schools -- create complex robots to carry out a variety of competitive tasks. The robots work autonomously and then under student control.

Admission is free and bring the kids. Matches will start around 9:30AM/10AM and continue till about 4PM or so, except for a lunch break. The matches take place int he Main Gym -- 3 playing fields and 4 robots at a time in each match. Teams work on the robots in the cafeterias. They test the robots in the CHS Robotics Clubroom down the hall from the cafeterias. You are welcome to tour the cafeterias and kids can ask questions of the various team members.

Our teams are Team 4102 which is our varsity team and team 5332 which is our junior varsity team. We have two other teams -- a freshman team (#7959) and a new middle school team (#9563) -- who will help out running the program on Sunday.

Spread the word!

Jude - Our grandson, who lives in St. Paul, has gone to St. Louis the past two years with his robotics team.

eta - I'll have to tell him that the team from Columbia took 2nd place in 2011.

The way the playoff rounds work is the top teams  in the preliminary round pick two partners each to form an alliance of 3 teams. The alliance stays together all the way through quarterfinals and semifinals and, if lucky, finals.

In 2011 we made it to the finals, one of 6 teams out of over, at that time, 2200 teams. In 2013 we made it as far as the semi-final round, which meant 12 teams out of at that time over 2500 teams. It is nice to say we were in the top 12 in the world and 2nd place in the world!!

Here's the schedule for the Qualifier. The other page is the cover page of the larger packet sent to all teams.

Hope everyone can come on Sunday to the big Qualifier -- get a glimpse of just how much students get into robotics and coding and technology -- not from the point of view of social media but actually creating something!!

Yup, it's great to see! 

After the events of the week from local (the Lockdown Yellow) to terrorist attacks in France, sometimes it is a boost to the spirit to see a whole other side to what the future might be like. You will see 36 teams working on what is clearly a major element of our collective futures -- robotics and coding. But they do this in a highly friendly and cooperative manner -- they compete but they cooperate with each other, team to team, school to school.

Yesterday we hosted a team from Chatham HS at our clubroom and our two teams (the two in the Qualifier on Sunday) and Chatham's worked together on their robots --exchanging ideas, helping each other and having a pretty good time while doing so. You will see this on a larger scale on Sunday. 

At many tournaments a team may find its motor has burned out and they have no spares; an announcement is made and several teams immediately walk over and offer them a motor to use for the day. Our teams have offered and received in the past and that is what this robotics program tries to install in clubs everywhere. 

So bring the little ones. Have them watch the matches AND also walk around in the cafeterias and ask any of the 36 teams in attendance what they are doing. The kids will have a great time and the teams also will have a great time.

... and of course, all donations gladly accepted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks so much!! I think my 6-year-old might really dig this. We'll plan to come by!!

News Flash: US FIRST added another team to this Qualifier so we now have 37 teams, officially off the charts!! 

The setup took many hours and our kids have been here since about 9AM and many are still here. And Sunday is another long day for them -- 7AM until 7PM! Quite an amazing crew!

This is great! Hoping g to bring a few kids to check it out. Good luck CHS/ SOMA Robotics! 

Is the CHS Key Club having an event today too? I wanted to donate 5 pumpkins for their "pumpkin smash" but can't find their advertisement again....if anyone is affiliated to that event please let them know there are 5 pumpkins at the curb for them Thank you 

Corey

We had a great tournament yesterday -- big crowds all day! We think we went over 1400 for the day!

Thanks to everyone who came by to see a brief glimpse of the future and a very large contingent of kids who just might be part of making that future happen. Many, many kids who have done robotics here at Columbia HS and many other schools are now in engineering/science/IT/computer science/coding majors and schools. Others pursue joint liberal arts and coding majors; many are in college clubs for robotics or drones or similar technologies.

We hope to get the FIRST Lego League (FLL) program moving in this District on a much larger scale -- more on that to come.

Thanks again!

Jude,

Thank you for being the spark and the administrator of the robotics movement.  Not so easy to be both!  I am happy that SoMA students have the opportunity to partake.

Thank you so much for sharing this information!! I was so disappointed to miss it. My younger son took an epic nap (1:30 - 5!) and, well, you just don't mess with that   Next year for sure!!

Here's one link to the tournament:

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/south-orange-slash-maplewood/articles/columbia-high-school-hosts-robo-catastrophe-event 

That link didn't work for me, but this one did (though it might be a different article):

https://www.tapinto.net/articles/columbia-high-school-robotics-competition