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Ranney Robotics Wins First State Championship of the Season

Ranney Robotics teams J and M won their first state competition of the year on October 22, 2016. Competing in three-team alliances, students represented 19 robots, including robot teams from as far away as Fallsburg, NY, and Philadelpia, PA. This early season VEX competition enabled students to test their new designs.
 
“Autonomous programming is a focus of this year’s competition,” explained Ranney Robotics Program Advisor and Computer Science Teacher Chiara Shah. “In the past, teams have neglected this skill, and the VEX Corporation answered by making it an integral part of the scoring process. I am pleased that all five of Ranney's Upper School teams competed in the programming skills portion of the competition. This growth is a reflection of the increased focus on computer science in the Ranney curriculum, and the increasing numbers of students enrolled in computer science courses at Ranney. We currently have 70 students enrolled in five computer science courses across the Upper School.”
 
Ranney’s five robots (Robots A, C, D, J, and M – see team list) had an extremely strong performance at the competition, bringing home five out of a possible nine trophies. Four of our five robots advanced to the final rounds. Awards included:  
 
Team 3815 M:   Kevin Yu and Kiran Shah, filling in for Rylan Foy and Kangqing (Connie) He (due to ACTs), went undefeated and finished 2nd in the qualifying rounds. They earned the Amaze Award for their on-field performance and “neat” battery charging stations built by Kiran over the summer. The team also won a Skills Champion award for having the highest combined score in both programming and driver skills challenges. Finally, their three-team alliance took the top spot as Tournament Champion, winning the competition, along with Ranney's Team 3815 J and Team 2616 E from Cherry Hill. News: The M team is currently ranked 24th in the world for its skills score.
 
Team 3815 J: Will Zheng, Mike Zheng, Jack DeNicola ( Dana Schioppo was unable to attend due to the ACTs). This team went undefeated and finished first in the qualifying rounds. They served as alliance captain of the winning alliance and brought home the Excellence Award for the “best-in-show” robot. This team had an outstanding engineering notebook that was clearly “part of the team's culture,” said the judges, as well as unique sensors on their robot for error-correction. This team was part of the three-team alliance that won the Tournament Championship.
 
Other teams in attendance included:
 
3815 A: iChris Glenn and Gerald "Chip" Johnson (Ben Iglesia was unable to attend due to the ACTs). This team finished 7th in the qualifying rounds and served as alliance captain of the fourth alliance. They lost in the semi-finals.
 
3815 C: Alex Klatsky, Rohan Sharma, and Luke Denver-Moore. Their notable achievement was having the only robot in the state so far to have successfully hung during competition—this bonus skill can earn a team huge bonus points during a match. This team was selected for the fourth alliance and lost during the semi-finals.
 
3815 D:Jack Bacher and substitute Carter Dibsie, filling in for team members Andrew Denton, Ryan Lubin, and Jacob Guess who were taking the ACTs. This competition was the first for both Jack and Carter and they performed admirably, winning several matches and overcoming several mechanical difficulties with grace and poise. In fact, they didn't know until the night before that they would be competing, so they went into this event with no practice.
 
Go Ranney Robotics! Follow us on Twitter.com/ranneyrobots
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Ranney School

235 Hope Road
Tinton Falls, NJ 07724
Tel. 732.542.4777
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