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RANGE, NJ — Orange High School’s Tornadoes FIRST Tech Challenge robotics team participated in the FTCNJ Northern League Tournament on Sunday, Feb. 20, with 22 other teams.
The Orange Tornadoes played five qualification matches and showed great effort in each game. At the end of the qualification matches, the top four ranked teams chose two alliances to play semifinal and final games. The Tornadoes’ hard work and dedication made them part of the first-ranked alliances. After successful semifinal and final games, the Orange Tornadoes and two alliances raised the first-place trophy and qualified for the New Jersey State Championship.
The team then competed in the state championship on March 6, and, while the team did not advance, it still ranked well.
“We are working to build the robotics program in Orange and eventually have three FTC teams: one at OHS, one at the STEM school, and one at the middle school,” robotics club adviser Sonya Noebels told the Record-Transcript on March 8. “Orange High School is proud to be the first of these three teams, and we hope to grow the program into something all students in the district have heard about and are eager to join, and to reach the state championships reliably every year.
“As the Orange High School coach, I hope for the team to be student-run, with returning students showing new students the ropes, and to be able to specialize roles so that some students can build, some can program, some can drive and some can advertise the program and fundraise,” she continued. “We would like for all students to have fun and feel they are contributing to the success of the team. Also, we hope to teach engineering and programming concepts to the students through the robotics program that they can use in their future careers if they choose to go into a STEM field.”
For students, the opportunity to enhance their STEM learning while having fun in a team atmosphere is unbeatable.
“The robotics team to me was about innovation from a somewhat humble-sized but excellent team and using our logic to solve whatever problems we faced in this competition,” team co-captain Miguel Huayhuas said March 7 to the Record-Transcript. Huayhuas, an OHS junior who co-captains with David Joseph, said the team is now “stronger and ready to tackle whatever next year has to offer.”
He was originally drawn to the team after seeing the unique designs of robots from previous years. He also liked the challenge of it.
“I enjoyed practicing our awesome designs, going against other teams in the matches with their own impressive designs,” he said, “and of course hanging out with fellow members of the team.”
Getting to see other teams’ designs and work with those teams is a big part of FTC robotics tournaments, such as the one on Feb. 20.
“The FTC robotics matches are played in teams, with two schools working together in each game against two other schools. It’s done this way on purpose to encourage communication and cooperation between all the teams, what FIRST robotics calls ‘gracious professionalism,’” Noebels said. “Our students did well at the Northern League tournament, winning four out of five matches, and so we were chosen by the top-ranked team, the JDroids out of Wayne, to play with them in the league semifinals, despite having a lower ranking than other schools who were able to attend more meets.
“As for why our team was chosen, I spoke with the JDroids coach at the state championships and she praised the reliability of our design, that we were able to score points in certain ways, reliably every time, and that we worked well with other teams on the field and had good communication with them,” she added.
These skills are exactly what FTC works to build in students. According to Noebels, these robotics challenges promote patience, optimism, problem-solving, quick thinking, staying calm under pressure, communication, partnership and pride.
“For students who are mechanically inclined or enjoy computer programming, they have a chance to go much further with those skills than they would be able to go in class,” Noebels said. “Though you can build a basic, competitive robot using simple engineering concepts, there is an opportunity to really go deep with it and learn, for instance, how to code an image-recognition program, or how to use encoders and sensors.”
She also pointed out that the FIRST program offers scholarships to students.
According to Noebels, the team is incredibly dedicated and hardworking.
“This is my first year coaching an FTC team at Orange High School, and I’ve been blown away by the talent and enthusiasm of the team this year,” she said. “I especially want to give a shoutout to our team captain, David Joseph, who always remains cool and collected under pressure, and whose excellent driving skills and steady presence are a big part of our success this year. Also, I want to shout out our build team lead and second driver, Miguel Huayhuas, who is completely brilliant and suggested nearly every change we made to improve the robot this year, based on what he observed the other teams doing. Finally, I want to shout out Anderson Thomance for doing most of our building during the weekday meetings, and Zachary Oriental for being our drive coach and human player at the competitions, and actually reading the 136-page rule book.
“To the rest of the team, if I didn’t mention you, I’m sorry, but thank you for coming to the meetings and keeping our spirits up,” she continued. “We had a lot of talent in the team this year, and I hope that everyone will be able to return next year and guide the new generation of robotics students.”
Photos Courtesy of Orange Public School District
Orange HS robotics team takes first place in competition, goes to state championship added by Yael Katzwer on
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