The Robotics Team’s Coach Elfman, who took on the head coaching role this year, led the team to a 10-2 victory at their local competition, continuing a successful and award-winning year.

“I competed [in robotics] at my high school. I competed independently. I’ve been to Hopkinton events as a competitor, and then I started volunteering [as an assistant coach] once I graduated,” Coach Elfman said.

After volunteering with the robotics team, former head coach, Coach Scott, invited Elfman to join as an assistant coach.

This year, Scott stepped down and Elfman was made head coach.

The team has had a successful full year, already having won a a tournament championship and design award in Connecticut, a tournament finalist in North Andover, a skills champion at WPI, and three innovate awards, one in North Andover, Framingham, and WPI.

“They had won at the WPI signature event, a skills champion. Which, at a signature event, that’s a big deal. Basically, they were second in line to qualify for the worlds [competition]. If one team double-qualified at that event, they would have gotten a spot,” Elfman said.

These successes have been huge for the team and encourage its members.

“The best part of the season so far was definitely our performance at the WAVE at WPI Signature Event. We ended up taking home two awards and were really happy with how we played against such high-level teams,” Team K member Vikrant Ramesh said.

Their most recent tournament was a big success.

“It went pretty well,“ Team K member Anand Narendran said. “One thing I want to change was, I would have probably made the setup times for the competition a little different, because we had to stay at school until 10:30 pm.”

Narendran noted that they could have worked more on their robot, as it broke during the competition.

The tournament consists of six matches, consisting of two stages each.

“There are two parts of the match, one where you actually drive a robot, and one where the robots are controlled autonomously,“ Narendran said.

The score reflected the team winning five out of the six matches, one match giving away two points to the opponent.

Narendran hopes his team will reach the US finals this year, as he’s seen improvement from last year’s performance.

“Our plan for the Hopkinton tournament was to secure a high rank so we could either pick a strong partner or get scouted by the top seed. Everything went according to plan, and we ended up winning the entire competition after being picked by the number one team,” Ramesh said.

Robotics registers four individual teams in every event, each one given a letter designation.

While only four teams competed, the program has many more teams. There is an E team of mostly seniors, a K team of juniors, a G team, mixing sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and an F team, mixing of freshmen, sophomores, and a junior.

These teams are constantly preparing to compete in future competitions.

The team has had a successful season this year, and winning this tournament past has put them even further ahead.

“Our team has been doing great this season, especially after winning 10 awards following the Hopkinton competition. We’re currently one of the top teams in the region and holding a high position in the World Skills rankings,” Ramesh said.

Elfman reflected on creating such a powerful team.

“[I] encourage a lot of field use time scrimmaging. Just before Christmas break, we ran a scrimmage in the foyer of the library where we set up a whole field.”

“I encourage them to do on-the-field practice. They also all practice at home [because] they all have their own fields,” Elfman said.

“Our preparation was mainly focused on ensuring the robot was mechanically correct and that our autonomous routines were consistent. We spent a lot of time testing the code to make sure we could rely on it during every match,” Ramesh said.