Metal Moose’s Stellar Season

The Metal Moose robotics team 1391, along with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics teams across the world, was given the challenge for this competition season in January. The challenge comes with specific parameters of the game. This year’s game was called REBUILT and the objective was that the robot had to pick up yellow balls called “fuel” and shoot them into a tall box called the “hub.” It’s then up to the teams to build a robot that can complete this task with precision and ready it for competitions.   

After months of prototyping, designing, building, and programming, the team attended their first competition in the second week of March at Seneca High School in Tabernacle, NJ. They were the captains of Alliance 3 and won the Quality Award, which celebrates machine’s robustness in concept and fabrication. Over spring break they continued to work on their robot, which they had dubbed Rufus. 

Their second competition was in the first week of April in Philadelphia. The Metal Moose ranked first, winning the event with the team from Friends Central School and another team from Maryland. Additionally, they won the FIRST Impact Award, which is the most prestigious award in FIRST robotics. The Impact Award recognizes teams that best exemplify the mission of FIRST and serve as a model for other teams to emulate. (This is the video they produced for the Impact Award about their team’s community and STEM outreach program.) This competition was the most successful in the team’s history, as they ranked first, captained the first alliance, won the event, and also won the Impact Award. Additionally, Maitreyi Vadigepalli ’27 won the FIRST Leadership Award which “recognizes outstanding secondary school students (in their 10th or 11th grade/school year) who demonstrate exceptional leadership, technical expertise, entrepreneurship, and a deep commitment to advancing the mission of FIRST Inspire.” 

The team qualified for the District Championship held at Lehigh University in mid April. At that competition, they were selected to be a part of the 4th Alliance, and qualified for the World Championship in Houston, Texas. The World Championship is for the top 600 teams of nearly 4,000 in the world. They were ranked #173 in the world, a testament to the hard work and talent of the team. Vadigepalli also won the FIRST Leadership Award at the district level, which is given to the top four students out of nearly 5,000 in our district. 

At the World Championship they finished their season ranked in the top 5% in the world, and 6th in the state of Pennsylvania out of 77 teams. The students report that they had “an amazing time” at Worlds and are happy with the season.  

Robotics coach, Steve Compton, adds, “The Metal Moose has qualified for the World Championship in 11 of the last 12 years, and finished this season in the top 5% in the world out of 3724 teams.” These are impressive statistics, but Compton is quite proud of the team’s Impact Award, which honors the team’s outreach and mission.“ This award is held to be the highest team culture award in the FIRST ecosystem, and honors teams that do good in the world.”  According to the FIRST organization, “The Impact Award is the most prestigious award at FIRST. It honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the mission of FIRST. It was created to keep the central focus of FIRST Robotics Competition on the ultimate goal of transforming the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as encouraging more of today’s youth to become science and technology leaders.” Indeed, much for the Metal Moose and our community to be proud of. Well done!