Bridgewater-Raritan’s robotics team, T.E.S.T Team 303, recently attended the FIRST Mid-Atlantic championship event, held at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
About 20 Bridgewater-Raritan team members were present at the event, hoping to progress to the World Championships in Houston, Texas.
The team was at the event because they had previously been awarded the Engineering Inspiration (EI) award at the district-level Warren Hills event that was held at Warren Hills Regional High School. This award is one of the most prestigious in Robotics.
According to FIRST, the EI award “Celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization and community.”
Team 303 participates in various outreach initiatives to promote all aspects of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) in the Bridgewater community. The team hosts a yearly STEAM fair, mentors various middle school and elementary robotics teams and hosts “303 on Tour,” a STEAM event that was held at the Hillside Intermediate School.
At Lehigh, the team competed with the other seven Engineering Inspiration award winners from their respective district events. This was done through a ten-minute interview process with the judges about some of the team’s engineering outreach initiatives. Several Bridgewater-Raritan outreach members were present to give the judges the most comprehensive summary of all the team’s initiatives, events and outreach accomplishments.
Despite its best efforts, Team 303 did not win the Engineering Inspiration award at Lehigh and therefore, they will not be moving forward to the World Championships this year.
Team 303’s team development captain, Aarav Sureban, reflected on the championship event.
“The FRC District Championship at Lehigh University gave us a great opportunity to proudly talk about what we do as a team for outreach efforts [and] it gave us valuable experience for our members,” he said.
While the team’s season is officially over, their work this year is not. On the build side of the team, the team will train members for next year, update the build room and the supervisors will brief their members.
On the team development side, the team will find more sponsors, work on their initiatives and prepare for the next season. Notably, the outreach subteam will work towards the planning of the annually hosted STEAM week, a week of fun STEAM activities in May.
The team hopes to do well in future seasons and continue its outreach efforts. They will celebrate their accomplishments this year at their annual banquet in June.
