Robotics Team Competes at CIJE Competition

by Shir Levenson, SSLI ‘26

Today, the high school Robotics Team participated in a competition at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) Middle School. For the past few months, students have been working on their robot after school. They begin the process by building a robot, then they test it, revise it, and continue to work on it.

Elisha Herbst, a senior, is co-captain of the Robotics Team. She shared, “Since October, our team has been meeting every Tuesday and building our robot [named Philbert], testing Philbert, and practicing driving Philbert.” Herbst continued that the whole team was “very excited to compete today, and we were very happy when we won five rounds in a row.”

Ariel Nitzan, a junior, explained the game that their robot had to play during the competition. Nitzan shared, “The goal of the game is to place rings on stakes to earn points. To earn points, the ring on top has to be the same color as your team.... Then, you have to move the stake to the corner of the arena to either add or subtract points. When the round is almost done, the robot needs to climb up a bar to score some extra points. At the end of the round, the team with the most points wins.”

 

Philbert did great at the competition today! (E. Herbst)

The robot is controlled by a student who is the designated “driver” during the competition. They use the controls to steer the robot to where it needs to go and complete each task. This year's driver was Gavi Nitka, a freshman.

Nitka explained, “It was really exciting being the driver. Definitely in the first few matches [I] had adrenaline pumping. I want to thank all of the team for working with me to assemble the robot and to help strategize for the competition.”

In between each match, Nitzan’s role “was to check … and make sure the robot was working.” Nitzan added, “It was very exciting competing. We made it farther than last year and won many games. The robot was great for this game. It worked almost perfectly.”

Go Philbert! (R. Rogers)

Nitka shared, “Our next competition is in April, and we have a few changes we want to make to Philbert, and I think he will be able to perform well.”

By the end, the Schechter Robotics Team made it to “sixth place [out of 33] and won five out of seven rounds in the regular rounds and lost the quarterfinals in the playoffs,” Herbst reported.

Reflecting on the team's achievements, Herbst said, “Gavi did a great job driving Philbert, earning many points, and winning five rounds. Our whole team is very proud of Gavi.”

Nitka exclaimed, “We can always strive to do better.” Nitka is proud of their work today and hopes that in April the team makes it even farther than they did.

Shir Levenson is a writer for Paw Print Now and has been published on the site since December 2022. Shir is currently a junior at Schechter School of Long Island and can be reached at the following email address: slevenson26@schechterli.org