Some members of the school community ask themselves, “What is Robotics?”
Haverford Robotics competes in the VEX Robotics Competition, or VRC for short. VRC is intended for high school teams, but plenty of middle school teams compete as well.
The 2022-2023 VEX Robotics season, ending at the end of April with the VEX Robotics Competition World Championship, was successful.
The game for the 2022-2023 VRC Season was called VRC Spin Up.
“Spin Up was an intricate game with the primary objective being centered around foam yellow discs. These discs can either be scored in the high goal, which is worth five points, or the low goal, which is worth one point,” Fourth Former Milan Varma said. “One could also flip cylindrical rollers to a certain position to gain ten points. Three points were given to a robot for every tile they were touching at the end of the match.”
Members are split into teams usually ranging from three to seven people. Teams in VRC are identified with a number symbolizing the organization of robotics, and a letter to symbolize the specific team. Haverford’s number is 169, nicknamed “The Cavalry,” and individual teams choose which letter they want to represent their team.
Haverford Robotics has consistently had some of the best teams in the country. The program has been around for over a decade, and coaches, chemistry teacher Mr. Will Leech, engineering teacher Mr. Adam Myers, biology teacher Ms. Alexandra Surdel and students work tirelessly to uphold a level of excellence.
The Cavalry’s journey started at a Signature Event in Worcester, Massachusetts. This event is called “The WAVE at WPI.” It took place on December 2-3, 2022. Signature Events are unique because three teams that attend the event will obtain a direct qualification for the VRC World Championship. Haverford sent four teams: 169A, 169B, 169C, and 169E.
In previous years, Haverford Robotics dominated the event. The Cavalry had a four-year winning streak at WPI. Although they didn’t win the tournament this year, they were still successful. 169A, led by Sixth Formers Arnav Sardesai, Zach Shah, and Megh Tank, made the highly selective Elimination Round but lost in the first round.
So, what did Haverford learn from this event?
“It gave us motivation to work harder and build a robot to get us to Worlds”
Fourth former kevin covington
“We learned that the competition is very good. We learned that if we wanted to compete for spots at Worlds, we would have to have a high-quality, efficient, and consistent robot,” Fourth Former Kevin Covington said. “ It gave us motivation to work harder and build a robot to get us to Worlds.”
The heart of the VRC tournament season started a month after the event. Local tournaments, competitions with teams from within the tri-county area, took place every two or three weeks. The end of this part of the season was marked by the State Championship.
The first local tournament was on January 7, 2023, at New Foundations Charter School. 169A made the tournament finals, which qualified them for states. The second local tournament was on February 4, 2023, at Holy Ghost Preparatory School. No teams qualified for States there, but 169C and 169E both quickly cemented reputations for being some of the better teams in the state.
A week later, on February 11, 2023, the third and last local tournament occurred. It was located at Spring-Ford High School. All 169 teams recorded a high skills score—skills are when your robot is the only robot in the field, and the goal is to just score points—especially 169E. Led by Varma and Covington, 169E’s skill score was top five in the competition. This qualified them for States.
On February 17, 2023, all 169 teams had qualified for States due to their skills score being top 80 in Eastern Pennsylvania.
For most teams, States is the last chance to qualify for Worlds. Teams have to have a top-five robot in the state if they wanted a chance at a Worlds qualification. 169A was especially motivated to get to this level, as they were expecting to qualify for Worlds before the States.
States took place at Norristown High School. Teams arrived on Friday, March 3, to set up their workstations along with possibly running a few skills rounds. The actual matches took place on the March 4.
All 169 teams did well. 169A and 169E were the two best-performing teams at this event; both qualified for the elimination rounds (three and four seeds out of sixteen, respectively). 169C just barely missed the elimination round.
“We worked tireless hours in order to have a chance at a Worlds qualification. It pains me to think about how we could have done things differently.”
fourth former kevin covington
169E was upset in the first round by the thirteenth seed. It was a tough loss, and the members of that team still wonder what they could have done to not lose that match. As Covington said, “We worked tireless hours in order to have a chance at a Worlds qualification. It pains me to think about how we could have done things differently.”
The big win from that tournament was that 169A’s skills score qualified them for the World Championships.
Third Former Ryan Shams and builder for 169Z had a lot of takeaways from this part of the season.
“Our team learned that we needed to spend more time with drive practice as well as testing autonomous programming,” Shams said. “If we had spent more time in those specific areas, we would have been more prepared for the events.”
He then went on to talk about what Haverford learned.
“Haverford Robotics as a whole was reminded of the importance of drive practice and testing code for large sums of time before the competitions,” Shams said. “As robotics in Eastern Pennsylvania is becoming more and more competitive, it is essential that every team spends a lot of time in those two areas to stand out against the competition.”
“Haverford Robotics as a whole was reminded of the importance of drive practice and testing code for large sums of time before the competitions,”
Third former ryan shams
With their qualification at States, 169A moved on to preparing for Worlds. They built a new robot with an aesthetic black and red color. The design was the same as what they had for States, except it was sturdier, a little more consistent, and had a little more power. Their Worlds Reveal, where they showcased the capabilities of their robot, is on YouTube. It is called “169 Spin Up VEX Worlds Reveal” on the channel MZFishing.
The VRC World Championship changes location every four years. From 2021-2024, it will be located in Dallas, Texas. Before that, it was located in Louisville, Kentucky. The new location has yet to be announced.
There are ten divisions at Worlds, and each division essentially functions as an individual tournament. In the end, the winners of each division play in a big bracket to determine who wins the entire tournament.
The team flew to Dallas on April 23 and set up that same day. They then had a full day to practice and refine code. By April 25, they were ready to compete.
In their first two games, the Cavalry struggled. They lost their first game 173-13 and lost their second game 168-75. However, they bounced back and won six of the last eight qualifying games, which was good enough to get them into elimination rounds as the ninth seed.
In the first round, they lost a hard-fought battle to the eventual champions of the division. The final score was 191-152.
That run gave Fifth Former Max Zhang and Fourth Formers Conor McDonald and Elliot Lee extremely valuable robotics experience.
Overall, the Cavalry’s season had its ups and downs, but it was unforgettable. Many team members look forward to coming back next year to compete in the new game, VRC Over Under. They also look forward to welcoming new team members, including a new coach, Computer Science teacher Mr. Stuart Alden.
