Thomas Detlefsen
Staff Writer
The New Hope-Solebury High School Robotics Club is off to a great start in 2017, bringing in new members and preparing for competition in the spring. This is the second year that the club is competing in a competition called Vex Robotics. In this competition, each team has to build and program a robot that will compete against other teams in a game. The competition changes each year; this year it is In the Zone, where robots have to stack cones in certain areas for points.
The club was created in 2016 by, and mostly populated by, a group of about 10 or 15 seniors. In its first year of competition, the club placed 13th out of 30 teams. This year the club has seven members, but they are still working hard to compete against the teams with 20 or more members and with more experience than last year, the team expects to place even higher in the competition.
Currently, the club is in the building phase where they are testing out multiple designs in order to determine which will be most effective in competition. Freshman Ben House says “For me it is always fun to think through difficult problems...It is always fun to relax from the chaotic classes, sit back and build.”
2017 is also the first year of the Middle School Robotics Club, which is participating in the same competition. The middle school team has 20 seventh and eighth graders learning about engineering and programming. Both teams look forward to a stronger future high school club.
