Robotics Team Heading to Lehigh Championships

The Bridgewater-Raritan High School Robotics Team, TEST Team 303, is heading to Lehigh University Thursday to compete in the Mid-Atlantic Robotics Region Championship.

A total of 46 students on the team will take their robots to the university for the weekend competition against 50 other teams, including Immaculata.

Currently, the Bridgewater team ranks 16th out of 109 teams, and advancing to the elimination matches at Lehigh will give the students the opportunity to qualify to compete in the World Championships in St. Louis at the end of the month.

According to a release about the competition, the team was founded 15 years ago, and competed in two qualifying events this year, one in Ewing Township and the other in Mt. Olive. In the former, the team finished fifth and earned the Engineering Excellence Award, and, in the latter, it finished second and received the Motorola Quality Award.

The Mid-Atlantic games, the release said, has robots competing against others, and this year’s game will feature robots flinging Frisbee-like discs into various goals during a 2-minute, 15-second period.

First, the release said, robots operate independently of driver input, and then the drivers control them toward the end. The match ends with robots attempting to climb pyramids, and teams earning points based on how high they climb.

Team 303 recently held a robotics competition at the high school, and they qualified to participate in the Lehigh tournament.

Superintendent of Schools Michael Schilder said he attended the competition, and saw more than 1,000 people already lining up to watch at 10 a.m. on the first day. He said he enjoyed seeing the entire gym set up as a giant cage with the amazing robots competing.

“I was blown away by the organization of it, and the logistics to put it all together,” he said. “I hope we can have it here next year.”

Keerthana Hirudayakanth, co-captain of the team, said they were proud to host this competition for the first time.

“Running this event was really a community effort consisting of the teams, students, parents and adults,” Hirudayakanth said. “The event was a very exciting experience for us, and we look forward to hosting more competitions in the future.”

For more information on Team 303, visit the website at 303gametime.org.