John Dewey’s Robotics program is one of the oldest in the school, and our FIRST ROBOTICS COMPETITION (FRC) Team is the oldest in New York City. This Year we have been granted the opportunity to host “Robo Replay”, an Off-season event in partnership with NYCFIRST, here at our school.
There were 13 teams competing in our school, including our very own MEGALODONS (333) and Sweet Tooth (9998) (an Off-Season robot the team has been working on). Playing the 2023 season game, Charged Up in the big gym.
The event started at 7 am and ended at 5:30 pm, the qualifications ended with Sweet Tooth and MEGALODONS being placed in 5th and 11th respectively. MEGALODONS received their first EVER red card, when 333’s robot made head on contact with The Sentinels (5599) causing them to tip over. Despite this, Sweet Tooth shocked the entire competition by being one of the fastest off-season robots there and also one of the smallest. In a qualification match where both Sweet Tooth and the MEGALODONS were on the same alliance, 333 managed to pull off a buzzer beating last cone to get their alliance 4 ranking points.
The winners of the event, Townsend Harris’s Steel Hawks (2601), Queens Technical High School’s Robotigers (1796), and High School For CTEA’s RedHawk Robotics (8739) team took home a trophy made by our very own students and mentors.
Other than just the competition itself, Robo Replay featured Workshops and show matches to educate and entertain. Workshops included mock judging for Impact award, one of the most prestigious awards in FIRST, and many more hosted by teams like Robotigers. The show matches that took place featured a Volunteers match where volunteers ran around the field pretending to be robots playing the game, another show match was Students vs. Mentors where humans would be playing Charged Up with the catch of students against the mentors.
It is an incredible experience to host Robo Replay at our school once again and we were glad to show new members of our robotics team ways to “pursue careers in stem” and give them a taste of what’s to come in the upcoming 2024 season for FRC. Emanuel Jeffers is a member who has been on the team since 2015, and graduated in 2018. Jeffers has guided students for years teaching them about code, and overall being a role model for the team to learn from. Jeffers is now the coach for 333, and went from being just a student to becoming the lead programming mentor for the team. To him robotics is about “mentoring the next generation”, he has been able to showcase robotics and inspire more kids because of Robo Replay.
Looking to the future, John Dewey High School Robotics will be competing in another upcoming off-season event, Brunswick Eruption. Where Swim Swim Shady will be competing in its last official match of the year in New Jersey.
