Tushar Vig of Durham Leads Robotics Team at Xavier

One of Xavier High School's newest club activities, the Robotics Club, is gathering a lot of interest, support and already seeing some early successes as team competitions are underway. Helping them on their way was the success in winning a highly competitive grant from NASA ($6,500) and UTC ($5,000).

Durham resident and Xavier senior Tushar Vig is the team's associate project manager.

The following is a note from one of the team's mentors, Jeffrey Marino:

Congratulations to the Xavier FullMetal Falcons successful entry into the fray at the Suffield Shakedown 2013 on Saturday, February 16, 2013. The Suffield Shakedown, Aces High's 12th annual FIRST Robotic Scrimmage at Suffield High School, Suffield, CT - This pre-ship date scrimmage is an informal but fun event giving teams the opportunity to practice their driving skills, test their robot and observe other teams on the official FIRST playing field. This event is designed to showcase the talents of our teams, practice and have fun! The FullMetal Falcons were awarded the Rookie All-Star Award ! They also placed first (had the most points) in the seeding for the playoffs…”

The team will compete in the Regionals at WPI March 7-9.

The team is made up of 20 students and 14 adult mentors and advisors.  Mr. Stephen Ambrogio, Xavier Mathematics & Computers teacher, is the faculty club moderator.  Several other faculty, staff, parents and students’ have come out to volunteer and support the team.

Mrs. Shannon Kief, one of the Parent Mentors, told us "The team competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) & our Regional event is the first week of March.  We have built a robot that meets both challenges:  throwing frisbees into targets and doing pull ups on a pyramid.  This being our first year, it was amazing to see the excitement of both the kids and the adults who have been working so hard as they watched it all pay off in a successful scrimmage last Saturday.  Teams who have been around for years repeatedly complimented our mentors and kids on the sturdy and elegant design they came up with. Our robot performance is actually only about a third of the items for which we are judged in competition.  We are also judged on our gracious professionalism/team spirit and, finally, on our outreach and marketing efforts.”