Montclair middle schools participated in the First Lego League (FLL) regional competition on November 23 at Clifton High School. Roughly 40 middle school teams from across northern New Jersey competed.
Buzz Aldrin
“We are very proud of our Buzz Aldrin Robotics Team who received a robot design award,” said Principal Jill Sack. “Although our team’s robot met with some challenges during the competition, we recognize the efforts and contributions of advisor Dan Taylor and our hard working team: Danica Stout (6th), Andrew Press (8th), Spencer McKenzie (8th), Anton Bregman (8th), Chris Borgen (8th), Nico Bambrick-Santoyo (8th), Luca Mendes-Martinez (7th), Zack Singer (7th), Aseem Rai, and Matthew Friedberg (7th). Thank you to our team alternates: Alex Amaral (8th), Hayden McAdams (6th), and Asher Skeen (8th). We greatly appreciate our team mentors, high school students Josh Stout (9th), and Sylvie Wurmser (9th).”
Glenfield
For the first time in years, the Glenfield Robotics team, otherwise known as the Robotic Gladiators, participated in the regional competition and earned the highest score in the "core values" category, which meant that all of the students worked collaboratively and respectfully with each other. They will go on to the state competition Dec. 14-15. The Robotic Gladiators, coached solely by Emma Tami, practiced during 9th period and after school for months. They constructed a robot using the EV3 kits capable of running specific tasks. They also created a presentation proposing a solution to a problem in Montclair. Tami encouraged her students to work together and guided them through the process of skill development. “This is an amazing achievement,” said Principal Erika Pierce. “I'm so excited to see what these kids can do up against the top teams of New Jersey,” added Tami. The Robotic Gladiators team is: Sean Overton (8th), Jett Higgins (8th), Anisa Uddin (8th), Liam Varnelis (8th), Abe Kirschner (7th) Diego Aguirre (7th), Aqib Uddin (7th), Tanuj Shirkhedkar (7th), Rex Unifelder (7th), Gabe Magwood (6th), Sydney Kirschner (7th) and Alex Jacobstein (7th).
Renaisance
The Renaissance robotics team, known for many years as TORN (Technological Organization of Renaissance Nerds) ran their Lego Mindstorms autonomous robot at the tournament. “While the team did not bring home the Champions award as they accomplished last year, their enthusiasm, spirit, and robotic accomplishments were still quite impressive,” said teacher Todd Smith. The team consisted of 10 Renaissance students (listed below), Coaches Mike Hadley and Per Moi, Renaissance alumni student mentors Isaac Liu (11th) and Francesca Roy (9th), and Smith. With this year’s theme of “City Shaper” TORN presented a project proposal of creating a parking garage in Montclair that would also contain a skateboard park. “It proved to be a very exciting day that culminated a lot of hard work since the team began meeting in August,” Smith added. Team TORN: Kate Baney-Giampoala (8th), Addie Goodspeed-Moses (8th), Mikey Hadley (8th), Kyesa LaRocca (7th), Kieran McCann (8th), Rosanna Moi (8th), Gio Olivi (7th), Ben Shandler (8th), Emilio Trejo (7th), and Ruby Unseth (8th).