EC Robotics Team Wins Awards

The EC Robotics team ended their season during the February 24-25 weekend at the FIRST FTC Northeast NJ Regional championship in dramatic fashion. In the end, the team just missed qualifying for the State Tournament, but did go home with two awards for the first time in its three year history.

The EC Robotics team (named ECR) is made up of nearly 30 high school students. Their job is to build, code, and manage robots that participate in the NJ FIRST FTC League. This year, the team entered 2 separate robot teams into the competition. One team was made up of returning team members (The Eaglebots), and the other team was a new rookie team (ECR Squared). The students also are in charge of managing the business of the team, including running fundraisers and contacting sponsors. Each year in September, FIRST releases a brand new challenge. The team participates in weekend tournaments throughout the school year, culminating in the Regional Championship in late February.

At the Regional Championship, the Eaglebot team entered the day ranked 6th in the region (out of 31 teams). Due to a great performance in the morning, the team rose to the #1 regional team entering into the final tournament of the afternoon. Our ECR Squared team entered the day in 7th place and stayed in 7th for the tournament. Due to seeding, the two teams joined alliances with other schools, and faced each other in the semi-finals of the tournament. The Eaglebot team won the semi-final. In the final, they needed to win 2 of 3 rounds to advance to the State Tournament. They won the first round, but then had their first losses of the day in rounds 2 and 3.

Our Eaglebot team went home with a trophy for making it to the finals. The team as a whole also won a trophy for the “Connect Award,” given to the best team in the region judged to have spread the vision of FIRST and love of engineering to their community. This award highlights the great work our team did this year with engaging fundraisers that spread our love for robotics, including our popular Robot Fight Night.

Thank you everyone who supported us this year! We improved from one team that finished in the top 25 of the region last year to two teams that ranked in the top 10, and we were one win away from our first State tournament entry! Thanks also to our many seniors who have led our team and brought us to new heights as a team.

The Eaglebots Competition Team: Josh, Nate, Tyler, Daniel, David, and Cassidy

By: Tim Steen

Tim Steen teaches many of EC's STEAM classes including Robotics and Coding.

Read More Articles by Tim Steen

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