Ranney Robotics Qualifies for Create US Open

In addition, the teams recently learned that six Ranney robots have qualified to attend a national competition, the CREATE US OPEN, to be held in Omaha April 7-9, 2015. “This year, the US OPEN is doubling in size to 300 teams from around the country,” says Robotics Advisor Chiara Shah. In addition to middle and high divisions, the competition calls for an “open” division in which students can add non-VEX parts to their robot. “A Ranney team won the 2014 open division, so we’re anxious to return to defend our title,” she adds.

In the winning alliance on February 7 was Team 3815J, led by Upper Schoolers Dana Schioppo, Will Zheng and Mike Zheng (not present). Team Engineer Will Zheng said after the event, “We are excited to have finally won a tournament after several second place finishes.” Team Captain Dana Schioppo added that “the challenge of robotics is to identify the abilities of each team member while strengthening the team's cohesiveness, which is paramount to success.”

Team 3815D, led by juniors Vasilios Nicholas and Jack Fink (not present) and ninth-graders Andrew Denton and Jacob Guss, won an Excellence Award, which is the top award of any VEX event. “Since returning from winter break with a newly designed robot,” says Shah, “our D Team has dominated the competition, winning a total of 7 awards, including two tournament championships.”

Says Team Leader Vasilios Nicholas, “We achieved this award by showing prowess in multiple areas, including having a high-level and consistently performing robot, a flexible strategy for every match as well as a detailed design and documentation of the robot’s flaws and the steps that we took to fix them.” Team D also won a Robot Skills Champion Award for earning the top score in driving skills, an individual challenge whereby one robot has 60 seconds to score as many points as possible.

Ranney’s P Team, led by seventh-grader Anthony Virone and eighth-grader Ananya Pandey, ranked in the top 10 throughout the day-long competition and finished the qualifying rounds in 7th place. During the playoff matches, Team P served as alliance captains and went all the way to the semifinals. This was only Team P’s second competition ever and they were competing against teams that had several more years of experience.

New Jersey does not have a separate Middle School division, so Ranney’s Middle Schoolers play alongside Upper School students. Even though Team P did not win the tournament, it did earn qualification for the State Championship by earning high scores in individual skills challenges.

Our G team, led by ninth-graders Kiran Shah, Chip Johnson (not present) and Max Bonevento, ranked 1st for most of the day in the qualifying rounds. “It felt great to be the top robot at the competition for most of the day,” says Team Captain Kiran Shah. The G Team finished the qualifying rounds in 2nd place after a tough battle in the last match.

“I'm pleased with the teamwork and cooperation between Ranney students this season,” concludes Shah. “Our older students are taking time to mentor and assist the younger teams, and this has shown in our awards and accomplishments, which have been won by a range of Ranney teams, not just one or two. This demonstrates the depth of our program, and the commitment these students have to making Ranney Robotics successful."

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