On February 19, the Delbarton Robotics team, Delbotics, traveled to Chatham High School to participate in our conference tournament. The team’s members include two 10th graders, Ed Malhan '24 and Cortland Forstner '24 - experts in mechanical engineering and strategy (Cortland’s team nickname is STRATEGO), and four amazing 8th graders, Raymond Xu '26, 10th grader Will Du '24, super experts in JAVA programming, and Jack Wade '26 and Michael Xu '26, experts in everything, from computer management to wiring to detailed mechanical engineering, and our superb jack-of-all-trades 7th grader, Christian Barravecchio '27.  Though the team is young, and had no prior experience, we have had a really great year.

A top six place in this competition would have solidified the team’s qualification for the State Championship. The tournament featured 21 teams from area schools. Each team plays 5 matches with a partner. Your partner teammate for one match could be your opponent in another. This dynamic adds another layer of complexity to the competition - the ability to quickly collaborate with another team that you have not previously practiced with.

In the first three matches, Delbotics was undefeated completing their tasks with valiant effort. In the final two matches unforeseeable problems arose.

First an entire motor mount came loose (despite a pre-match tightening of everything, and exacerbated by grease leaking from a new! motor) which caused one wheel to fall off of the robot. As the driver and team captain, I tried to salvage any possible points with three wheels while also trying to limit damage to the robot. After the match, the team transformed into a Formula One pitstop-esque crew (we bring full spare equipment for any contingency) successfully removing the wheel, the motor, the motor mount, and replacing them all within three minutes.

In the next match one the USB ports for the robot control system fried. This was sad, as the team had replaced all old equipment with brand new equipment prior to the competition, and in the third rebuild of the robot.  Unaware in the three-minute battle what caused the malfunction, Delbotics lost their last match. Despite two major mechanical failures, and missing high point counts for one of those matches, the team still managed to place 11th in the tournament.  But! - there is more to the competition. 

After the match, tournament interviews were held between First Tech judges and the entire Delbotics team (without advisors present). The team participated in two interviews. The first to learn about the team and organization. The second was with technical judges to learn about the robot’s design. Our robot was designed in a novel way to maximize point count in the competition - specifically using an arm that rotates over the robot while it’s moving to save time (and add points).  It’s also significantly simpler than many other robots, while yet maintaining an advantage in performance.  (In engineering, simpler AND better is a winning formula.)

At the awards ceremony the Delbotics team made a major breakthrough. For the second year in a row the Delbotics team won the Engineering and Design Award for most innovative and significant robot design. See our Engineering Portfolio here. 

This award was presented to the Delbotics team for its intake system that utilized a 3D printed casing system alongside a motor to rotate the entraption stars and a motor to change the angle of the entire intake system. Also - it was clear to judges that we built the robot (not adults), and knew everything about it.  Last year, we won the 2nd place Engineering and Design Award.  This year we won 1st Place! The award is significant - showcasing slick Delbarton engineering robotics design.  Overall, to cap off the season, Delbotics has a lot to be proud of winning the Engineering & Design Award even with a very young team with two sophomores and five middle school students.  Each of the team members will go on to great things in the future.  Many thanks to our head advisor Mr. Bitler, and our assistant advisor Mr. Diaz!

Enjoy this video of our Night before practice runs in the Gregory Room, and here is our Autonomous Movement Practice (1st 30 seconds robot under autonomous control)  AIl programming written by Raymond Xu and Will Du...