UPDATED: 2 Framingham High Robotics Teams Qualify for VEX World Championships

Originally posted at 8 a.m. on March 9. Updated with additional photo for Thursday newsletter.

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By Peter Erbland

Framingham High Robotics Club Advisor

Eighty-seven of the best VEX robotics teams from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island competed March 5-6th at Quinsigamond Community College to qualify for the VEX Robotics World Championship.

At the end of the two days of grueling competitions that pushed the robots and the students to the edge, the Southern New England Nothing But Net Championship ended with the alliance formed by a team #9421 from Framingham High School and two teams from Blackstone Valley Regional High School (teams #6916C and #6916D) as the Tournament Champions.

This is the same three-team alliance that won the tournament at QCC in February.

The weekend started with 87 teams (including six teams from Framingham High School) arriving at QCC in the early morning. They were to spend Saturday and Sunday competing with and against teams that including Moses Brown School (RI), Bancroft School, Worcester Tech, Pingree School, Danbury High School (CT), Choate Rosemary Hall, Two Rivers Magnet High School (CT), Notre Dame High School (CT), North Andover High School, Phillips Academy Andover, St. John's Prep and Roxbury Latin.

This year’s VEX Robotics Competition, Nothing But Net, is played on a 12’x12’ square field.

Two alliances – one “red” and one “blue” – composed of two teams each, compete in matches consisting of a 15 second autonomous period followed by one minute and forty-five seconds of driver-controlled play. The goal is to score as many 4” balls as possible into three foot high nets during the competition. There is also a Driver Skills Challenge where one robot has 60 seconds of driver-controlled play and the Programming Skills Challenge that consists of 60 seconds of autonomous play.

At the end of the competition, the top 12 teams qualified for the World Championship as well as the top scorers in Driver and Programming Skills. In addition, the winners of two other awards, Design and Excellence, also qualify.

The competition was fierce but in the end the Framingham/Blackstone Valley alliance held and won. The members of team #9421 (sophomore Joey Wolpert, and seniors Evan Chansky and Eric Bornstein) were elated.

However, there was another award to be given: the Excellence award.

According to VEX Robotics, “The Excellence Award is given to the overall top team. It is the highest honor given out in the VEX Robotics Competition. The recipient of this award is a team that exemplifies overall excellence in creating a high quality VEX robotics program. This team excels in many areas and is a shining example of dedication, devotion, hard work, and teamwork. As a strong contender in numerous award categories, this team deserves to be recognized for building a quality robotics program and a ‘team’ committed to quality in everything that they do.”

When it was announced that Team #9421 won the Excellence award, the auditorium (filled with Framingham students and parents) erupted with cheers.

Either award qualifies them to go to the VEX Robotics World Championship, but the Excellence award is one of the most coveted.

The members of Team #9421 will go to Louisville, KY during April vacation to compete against 450 other teams from around the world.

This will be the third time Joey has gone to Worlds and the second time for both Evan and Eric. Evan and Eric are among the founding members of Framingham High Robotics and Joey is one of the founders of Walsh Middle School Robotics.

Then Monday morning, March 7, we were contacted to let us know that another Framingham High School team, Team #9421X, also qualified for the World Championship due to their Drivers Skills and Programming Skills scores from the previous matches.

This team, made up of sophomores Kevin Lenzi and Varun Tekur, will also be traveling to Louisville.

This will be Kevin’s second trip to Worlds and Varun’s third.

Kevin, Varun, and Joey are founding members of Walsh Middle School Robotics Club, known as the WalshBots.

Next comes the daunting task of fundraising to pay for team registrations ($850 per team), lodging, food and transportation.

Anyone interested helping the high school teams reach Louisville can send a tax deductible donation to the Framingham High School Foundation, PO Box 2367, Framingham, MA 01703. Be sure to put FHS Robotics in the memo.