Members of the Northwood Robotics team posed for a photo at the 2022 FIRST Robotics World Championships in Houston, April 2022 (Photo provided).The Northwood Robotics Team travelled to Houston, Texas over spring break to compete in the FIRST Robotics World Championships. It’s the first time Northwood has qualified for the prestigious event. After a long season of preparation and hard work, they earned their place at the world championship, and the finished the competition with a winning record.
Teams go through qualifications, which include 10 matches. At the end of qualifications, the teams that place in the top 8 then pick 3 other teams to be with them. Northwood’s robotics team won 6 and lost 4 in the qualifying round, which is outstanding for their first world championship, but unfortunately, they didn’t get picked to advance.
There were 75 teams in their division and Northwood Robotics placed 46th based on points and placed in the top 20 based on wins and losses.
The team was encouraged by the performance.
“It was fantastic. There were 25,000 people at the arena. We focused mainly on being a strong defensive team,” David Garvey, one of the team’s leaders, said. “We played some really good defense. We held some of the best teams in the world down really well. We were one of the best defensive robots there. It was an unreal experience going to such a huge event, it will be a tournament I remember for the rest of my life. We learned so much from this trip. Experiencing new things and meeting new people helped me develop as a person. Overall, it was a fantastic experience,” Garvey concluded.
The robotics team found success despite having several issues getting to Houston. They were supposed to fly out of Albany at 9:30 on a Tuesday morning, but their plane broke down. The team began to worry that they wouldn’t make it to Houston. Thankfully, United Airlines gave them a coach ride to a hotel in New York, and with a 3:00 am start the next day, they finally made it to Houston.
“We arrived in Houston at 8:30 a.m., and it took us an hour to get to the competition. We competed hard all day and got back to the hotel around 7:30 p.m. which gave us a bit of time to rest, but not much, because we had to be at the competition at 6 a.m. the next day,” Garvey said.
The students who represented Northwood Robotics in the competition were Anthony Lavigne ‘22, Brian Bette ‘23, Brian Brady ‘24, David Garvey ‘22, Kiet Do ‘22, Matthew Burns ‘22, Minh-Khoi Nguyen ‘23, Mitchell Tuttle ‘24, Piper Teig ‘25, and Wyatt Wardlaw ‘24. Mr. Martin is the coach and mentor of the team and Ms. Martin also serves as a team mentor.
These students have worked hard all year and have talent and passion for robotics. They are happy with their performance in Houston and are optimistic about Northwood’s future in robotics. It was a great tournament for Northwood School and a valuable experience for students.
