On Dec. 16, the Herricks Robotics Club kicked off its season in the VEX Robotics Competition with a successful qualifying tournament at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Carle Place. A total of 33 Herricks High School students participated in this competition.
The two Herricks teams, 11040A and 1104B, supervised by technology teacher Dan Gillam and math teacher Kadir Kadri, were alliance captains for the quarterfinals and fought hard in the elimination matches. Team11040B had close matches in the semifinals, and despite not moving on to finals due to technical difficulties, received the Judges Award in recognition of the students’ interview, sportsmanship and overall performance of the robot.
The club met throughout the summer and on weekends, in addition to its weekly meetings. Participants have spent hundreds of hours working on the robots. Herricks Robotics Club board members Caitlin Chou, Richard Tsai, Bhavesh Patel, Chris Lo, Amanda Chiang, Chloe Chu, Kanishk Kumar and Herbie Hagemann played important roles in the group’s success. The teams hope to move on to the State Championships in their next qualifying tournament on Jan. 7 with the goal of achieving another home victory.
The club welcomes any additional high school students who might be interested in joining and taking part in this opportunity to expand STEAM education beyond a traditional classroom setting.
