Millburn Middle School Robotics Team

After spending months of building, coding, and competing, all of our MMS robotics teams have achieved great feats, even qualifying for states. Though the road was not easy, here are some insights on the process of how these teams succeeded in this year's competition. 

THE TEAM:

The robotics team was formed way back during the spring of 2024. Hosted by the previous robotics club members and Mr. G, the robotics teacher, the applicants were put through three challenges that tested their skills in various fields. These challenges were driving, coding and building. In the driving challenges, students were given a claw bot, which had an arm that extended like a crane to pick up objects. Using this, they had time to see how many blocks they can stack as fast as possible. Next, was the coding challenge. Students were put in a simulator of a Vex IQ game, and had to create a program to score as many points as possible. Finally it was built. Students were given the bare minimum of materials, and had to create a drive base that was structurally sound. Furthermore, they weren’t given any pins, and had to experiment with various pieces. After a lot of deliberation, the members selected for the team as well as the captains were announced. One week later, the captains chose their teams.

7144B: Dhruv Bidasaria, Dhagash Desai, Atharv Karamcheti

7144J: Bryan Jiao, Alyson Wong, Adhvik Jain

7144K: Vikrant Kawadkar, Vihaan Chohan, Dhruv Chandran

7144S: Samir Sukhatme, Aaroh Mehta, Adhitya Balakumar

7144X: Oliver Legasto, Changu Kim, Justin Liu, Jason Yu

THE GAME:

This year, the Vex IQ game is Rapid Relay. In this game, robots have to shoot as many plush balls into the goals as possible to get the highest score. This fast paced game requires a lot of strategy and thinking to maximize point scoring in this game. There are two ways to play this game. One is the skills challenge, which involves one individual team to try and score as many goals as possible with both a coding round and a driver round, each lasting one minute. Students use block coding or python to create a program for the coding round. Programming can also be used to create shortcuts with the multiple buttons on the controller. 

THE SEASON:

The journey of our MMS robotics teams has been nothing short of transformative. It began with a group of passionate students with shared interests in innovation and technology. Their determination carried them from August to February, working non-stop to create an outstanding bot to crush the competition and come out on top. Getting started in the summer was the hardest part. According to Dhruv Bidasaria from team 7144B, “It was really tough trying to build something so advanced in the beginning. Especially for being completely new to the competitive robotics scene, we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.” Furthermore, having access to parts was also a challenge, as teams were only limited to the pieces they could carry out of school. Numerous prototypes failed, and figuring out the programming took a long time, yet each obstacle strengthened the resolve of these teams. Coming back to school together in September fueled these teams even more, with teams helping other teams, and competition to see who could build the best bot. As the months progressed, the efforts of each team blossomed into engineering marvels that not only showcased their technical expertise but their boundless creativity. In fact, team 7144S was able to achieve the Design Award, and 7144X gained multiple Teamwork Awards. All the teams qualified to states. Though the teams fell just short of a shot at worlds, with team 7144B getting third place and both 7144X and J getting fifth place, commitment and perseverance were key traits shown throughout their season. 

OTHER TEAMS:

This year’s VRC game was High Stakes, where bots have to score rings on stakes. Team 4611J from Robot Revolution led by Aryav Jain, Christopher Lee, Jacob Riggers, Tashi Satish, and Yash Sarje (all MMS students) have all contributed to their accomplishments in states. They were able to achieve the Excellence Award and Teamwork Award, and have qualified for Worlds, held in Dallas, Texas. Team 4611B, with 1 MMS student and 4611F with 2 MMS students also qualified for worlds, with 4611B winning the tournament alongside 4611J and 4611F qualifying off of skills, an individual driving and programming challenge which can be done at competitions. 4611F came first place in skills. We wish good luck to all of our fellow peers representing our school in Dallas this May.

THE FUTURE:

With the season being over for our MMS teams, it is now up to the passionate 7th graders to lead the robotics team next year. After this successful year, MMS hopes that the new generation of engineers will lead our school to newer heights. An interest meeting for this club will be held on April 11th, which will give a tour of the room. After that, there will be tryouts for the robotics team, similar to what our current robotics members had to go through. We look forward to seeing the creativity, innovation, and teamwork that the upcoming robotics team will bring. Let’s continue to build on the strong foundation laid by this year’s team and inspire a legacy of excellence at MMS. Good luck to all aspiring engineers—your journey begins here!