Bridgewater-Raritan High School’s T.E.S.T. Team 303 recently attended its second regional qualifying tournament of the 2025 season.

The competition attracted 30 teams and was held at Pennsylvnia’s William Tenent High School in Warminster.

Over 20 club team members from Bridgewater-Raritan High School were in attendance. 

Team 303 participates in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition, or FRC. They attend two regional competitions within the FIRST Mid Atlantic district; this competition was the second of the year. 

Team 303 first attended their Warren Hills High School competition in Washington, just one week prior to attending Centennial in Warminster. The team left at an early hour: approximately 6:30 a.m. on both days to attend this event. 

The opening ceremonies consisted of two speakers: Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick from Levittown and Representative Brian Munroe from Pennsylvania’s 144th district. 

Teams first participated in 60 qualifying matches, where they were randomly paired up with two other teams to be in alliances competing against each other. Matches won during this time as well as points scored influenced each team’s rankings within the event.

At the end of qualification matches, Team 303 was ranked 12 out of 30 teams at the event. The next phase would include alliance selection for the playoff bracket. The top eight teams are deemed “alliance captains” where they choose the robots they want in their alliance for the playoffs. This is where scouting—keeping track of other teams’ abilities—really came into play.

Lower-ranked alliance captains are typically chosen to be on other alliances. Fortunately, Team 303 became the alliance captain of Alliance 8. They were joined by Team 6808, the host team of William Tenent Robotics, as well as Team 8630, CAP Robotics, from Paterson, N.J.

The alliance trudged through the lower bracket after losing their first match. They still had a chance to make it to finals if they won every match and won the lower bracket. The team made it to Round 3 semifinals before losing a match, 108-104, meaning an end to Bridgewateer-Raitan’s run to the final round.

However, seeing as this was a significant improvement over the team’s 2024 season, the team members were thoroughly excited about their performance at this event.

At the Centennial awards ceremony, Team 303 was recognized with the Team Quality Award. According to FIRST, this award, “recognizes teams whose robot design and fabrication demonstrate robustness and attention to detail, showcasing quality in workmanship, welds, attachments, wiring, and paint”. The judges noted that the under-the-bumper wiring aspect of the team’s robot contributed to this success. 

Junior Arav Kewalia was selected as a semfinalist for the prestigious Dean’s List Scholarship award, something that recognizes exemplary leadership, impact and commitment to both their robotics team and the FIRST Core Values. Kewalia was later interviewed at the Lehigh District championship for the chance to be a finalist at the World Championships in Houston, but unfortunately didn’t qualify further for Worlds. 

The team as a whole did not qualify for the District Championship, ranking 74 out of 130 teams. Going into the off-season, the team will focus on training members as well as planning their outreach initiatives. The team’s annual banquet, a send-off to the season, will take place in the coming weeks.