XAVERIAN LAUNCHES TEAM ROBOTICS CLUB

It’s an exciting time for Xaverian students who like to tinker, work with their hands, or who just enjoyed the robotics component of their grade 8 science curriculum and want to learn more. A new club, Xaverian Team Robotics, just held its first meeting this past week. There are currently 16 students signed up, and club moderators Mr. Roche and Mr. Tassinari expect more to be on the way. Getting a jump on things this spring was important to Mr. Roche. He said that the initial goal for the spring is to have two working robots, with the team joining competitions in the fall of 2021.

The club will compete in the FIRST Robotics League® (F.I.R.S.T. standing for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), initially as a part of the FIRST® Technology Challenge, or FTC, which is open to students in grades 7-12. The league has entries from all around the country, with scholarships available to the winners in many cases. Each robot entered in the FTC is tasked with completing a number of timed challenges, such as stacking items or throwing blocks at a target. As stated on the FIRST® website: “Tech Challenge students learn to think like engineers. Teams design, build, and program robots to compete in an alliance format against other teams. Robots are built from a reusable platform, powered by android technology, and can be coded using a variety of levels of Java-based programming.”

With each robot being fully programmed and constructed by students, our Hawks will get the double benefit of hands-on learning and the importance of teamwork. The eventual goal of the club is to compete nationally in the FIRST® Robotics Competition, or FRC, which is open to high school students. Teams build a robot starting with a standard kit of parts and common set of rules to play in a themed head-to-head challenge.

We’re looking forward to seeing the team grow over the spring and begin competitions next fall! Any students interested in joining the Xaverian Robotics Team should contact either Mr. Roche (croche@xbhs.com) or Mr. Tassinari (jtassinari@xbhs.com).