WHS Robotics Team 1153 Places 7th at World Championships

I am a mentor for the WHS Robotics team, and have been for the past 9 years.  This was an interesting year for us as we had a difficult start, but a very strong finish.  I am extremely proud of the kids from WHS and how they worked extra hard after a tough start at WPI and earned their way into the Elite 8 at the World Championships out of 400 teams from all over the world. Here is a recap of our year. - Mark Gallivan

WPI
We started the year with our first competition at WPI where our shooter broke, and we finished out of the playoffs.  But we did win the prestigious "Industrial Design Award" sponsored by General Motors

Northeastern

The kids did a great job during the 10 days before our next competition at Northeastern and completely re-designed and built a brand new shooter.  When they arrived at NU, they had to scramble to put the new shooter on the robot.  At NU we ranked #5 after qualifying rounds, and lost in the semi-finals.  Again we had a strong engineering showing and earned the prestigious "Excellence in Engineering" Award sponsored by Delphi

New England Championship - BU

Our strong showing at NU and winning the 2 awards,  earned us the last invite to the New England Championship at BU.  We were clearly an underdog at this point having earned the 53rd invite.    The team had a strong showing, ranked #2 after qualifying rounds and losing in the quarter-finals.  Again we were recognized as an outstanding team and earned the "Gracious Professionalism Award" sponsored by Johnson & Johnson. 

World Championship - Edward Jones Dome St.Louis

Again with a strong showing at the New England Championships we earned one of the last invites to the World Championship in St Louis.  The team was on a roll and earned a #2 ranking in our bracket of 100 teams.  Winning the Quarter-Finals and Semi-Finals before losing in the finals.  They battled hard, showed Walpole pride and finished #7 in the World.

Also - here is a video of us in the New England Championship.  We are team 1153.  We are the 1st robot with red bumpers on the right.  In the first 10 seconds we score a goal worth 20 points in autonomous mode - which means that the robot is not being driven by the kids, but has been programmed to use sensors [light sensors, encoders, color camera] to drive over the white line - get close to the wall, and shoot when the goal is lit up yellow for bonus points.  After that first shot, the kids then take control and drive the robot.