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Lower & Middle School Teams Compete in State Robotics Champ

Upper School teams make it to finals in a separate meet.
Fifty-one elementary and middle school teams came to Ranney’s campus Sunday, December 13 to complete in the New Jersey VEX IQ Competition State Championship. Ranney students represented six of these teams, two from Middle School and four from Lower School. Students arrived at 6 a.m. to begin preparing their robots, which they have spent months building, programming and testing. After being inspected, teams performed skills challenges and teamwork challenge matches before moving into the finals. The tournament was a combined elementary/middle school event, meaning elementary students competed against middle school students.

Our Middle School teams earned a 7th place in Driving Skills and a 21st place in the teamwork challenge. Members included sixth grader Winston Kelenc-Blank, seventh-grader James Glover, and eighth-graders Nick Sakson and Shrish Vaidyaselvan.

“The boys are excited to move on to the CREATE - National Championship in April in Iowa,” says Middle School Robotics Advisor Carol Ann Rofrano. “They are full of ideas to modify and improve the performance of their robot and look forward to meeting other students from across the country and seeing the robots they designed.”

In the Lower School, advised by Mrs. Judy Salisbury and Mrs. Maureen Wood, Ranney had one team make it all the way to the finals, etching out their middle school peers: Pierce Kane and Tomas Mora. Their robot, named Exon, placed 6th.

The following fifth-grade teams, and their robots, also did well in the Teamwork Challenge:

Luke Zaslow and Chaz Hovnanian - The Dropper
Maria Guiliano and Isabella Santulli - Pink Flames
Pierce Kane and Tomas Mora - Exon
Christian Virone and David Tansey – Real Steel

On the day prior, December 12, our Upper School VEX team students were competing across the county at Monroe Township High School with six of their robots, against a total of 37 robots. Our A Team - Ben Iglesia ‘17, Chris Glenn ‘18, Chip Johnson ‘18 -finished 1s  in the qualifying rounds and were the only team to go undefeated in the qualifying rounds. Despite making it to the finals, they lost in in a tough battle. Their robot came in 2nd place in the Driver Skills Challenge and 3rd place in the Programming Skills Challenge.
 
Four Ranney Upper School robots finished qualifying rounds in the top 10, including one built by a new member of the team, senior Avneet Singh, who was competing for only the second time.
 
“Overall, Ranney had a strong showing with some new faces excelling,” says Robotics Program Advisor Chiara Shah. “We're looking forward to our next event at Ranney in RSPA Panther Hall on January 16!”

Mrs. Shah adds a special thanks to all the student volunteers who competed on Saturday for 13 hours, then stayed at Ranney late Saturday night to set up RSPA Panther Hall for the VEX IQ State Championship, and then came in early on Sunday to help score, ref, sell concessions and break down the competition setup.  "We could not have had such a successful VEX IQ event without them." Said, Ben Mitchell, owner of Garden State Robotics, who organizes VEX Robotics events in NJ,
 "We ran 378 skills and qualification Vex IQ matches, ending half an hour early with zero major issues."  
 
Learn more about Ranney robotics on our webpage.



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Ranney School

235 Hope Road
Tinton Falls, NJ 07724
Tel. 732.542.4777
Our mission is to know and value every child, nurturing intellectual curiosity and confidence, and inspiring students to lead honorably, think creatively, and contribute meaningfully to society.