Robotics Team Holds First Meeting of the Year

 by Hannah Fineman, SSLI '25

Yesterday, the Robotics Team kicked off the year with their first meeting. Throughout the course of the school year, the Robotics Team will work together to build a robot that will compete in two competitions through the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education (CIJE).

The team had an amazing first meeting and is ready to work hard this year. (R. Rogers)

Elisha Herbst, the Robotics Team's Co-President, started the meeting by having the team watch this year's video, which provided the prompt for this year's competitions. Herbst is very excited about the new members who came to the meeting and hopes the whole team "can work together to build different parts of the robot so that we can finish building the robot quicker and have more time to test and improve it."

Philbert is the beloved robot of the Robotics Team. Its name has been passed down from generation to generation and has become a wholesome tradition of the team. Herbst’s co-president, Risa Rogers, explained what challenges Philbert will face in the competitions: "There are rings that the robots will have to put on different stakes, specifically mobile stakes, alliance wall stakes, neutral wall stakes, and high stakes. There is also a ladder in the center of the field that the robots will have to climb up at the end of the competition."

Mr. Garcia, the club advisor, expressed his goals for the team this year. “Last year, we started in a pretty disorganized manner. It took a long time before students had a plan for how they wanted to get started, and there was a lot of discussion and disagreements about how to even get started. I am hoping that we can kind of get past that part, jump into a plan, and have a good starting point early in the year.”

This was clearly implemented in the first meeting, as freshman and new member Ben Gorman said his favorite part of the meeting “was seeing everyone get to work right away. The team did not argue and worked in peace.”

Not only did the club organize into groups, like Garcia hoped, but they also made a plan for the year. Rogers explained the team is “going to start by building one of the robots on the Vex website because we have the step-by-step instructions for it. Then, we will make some improvements. Then, at the next meeting, we will start working on building Philbert.”

This year's Robotics Team is shaping up to be fierce competition. Rogers concluded, “I can’t wait to start building Philbert. I hope we will win and bring home a trophy!”

Hannah Fineman is a writer for Paw Print Now and has been published on the site since November 2021. Hannah is currently a senior at the Schechter School of Long Island and can be reached at the following email address: hfineman25@schechterli.org