Robotics Teams Reach World Championships

It’s been another stellar season out of the Bolles Makerspace as the upper school and middle school robotics teams put together incredible showings at the Massachusetts State Championships and earned coveted trips to the World Championships.  

At the high school level, three Belmont Hill teams competed in the grueling two-day state championships. Team 35075A Milk&Cookies was awarded the Innovate Award, which recognizes an effective and well documented design process for a novel aspect of the team’s robot design or gameplay strategy. The award emphasizes design aspects that are novel and creative. With that superb showing, the team became one of only thirteen from the state to receive an invitation to the World Championships, a feat made all the more impressive by their late change in approach. 

“The Upper School team decided to take a big risk in rebuilding their robot from the ground up about two weeks before States,” said Director of the Makerspace Matt Ziff who coaches the robotics teams alongside Dr. Maureen Courtney. With the Innovate Award and a trip booked to Worlds, the gamble certainly paid off.  This accomplishment is all the more special for team member Ben Qin ’29, who will be making his third consecutive World Championship appearance, after his team won the Excellence Award last year at the Middle School State Championships.

Two Belmont Hill middle school teams thrived at their state tournament. Team 35075G Gamma Rays of Form I students reached the quarterfinals and won the Think Award, given to the team with the most effective and consistent use of coding and programming to solve game challenges.

Team 35075X Latin Long Block reached the semi-finals and was awarded the Design Award, given to a team that demonstrates an organized and professional approach to the design process. The award focuses on the use of the engineering design process, project management, and team organization, as documented in their Engineering Notebook. With this performance, Latin Long Block became one of only seven middle school teams in the state to move on to Worlds, the fourth consecutive year a Belmont Hill middle school team has achieved this distinction.

“The middle school team was at the top of their game as one of the strongest-performing teams in the state all year,” Mr. Ziff said. “Their attention to detail and clear focus on the design process were evident in winning the Design Award.”

The Milk&Cookies and Latin Long Block teams will travel to St. Louis in April to compete at the World Championships, where they will be among only 600 middle school and 850 high school teams from around the globe.  This is the second year in a row two Belmont Hill robotics teams qualified for the World Championships, and Mr. Ziff sees no sign of the program letting up. “With only one Form VI student on the high school roster, it bodes well for the coming years!"

Team rosters and photos from the Massachusetts State Championships can be found below:

Upper School Team 35075A Milk&Cookies:
Ben Qin ’29
Ryan Ho ’28
Ryan Li ’28

Middle School Team 35075X Latin Long Block:
Jaydin Chen ’30
Rocco Choe ’30
Michael Guo ’30
Liam Kilpatrick ’30
Dominic Li ’31
Kieran Tella ’30
Lingyun Xu-Sun ’30