StuyPulse Takes On South Florida Regional Competition

Stuyvesant’s award-winning For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Robotics team, StuyPulse, attended the South Florida Regional Competition from March 1 to March 4, and left with the prestigious Chairman’s Award. The last time StuyPulse was awarded this honor was in 2012.

They were one of 6,000 other First Robotics Competition (FRC) teams; among them were teams from Brazil, Colombia, and Turkey. Winning the Chairman’s Award allows StuyPulse to advance to the FRC World Championship in St. Louis from April 26 to April 29. The World Championship gives the team a shot to be inducted into the FRC Hall of Fame.

Qualification for the Chairman’s Award required additional aspects of preparation, including a presentation on the team’s community and outreach projects. This presentation included an essay, executive summary, short video, and oral presentation about the team.

“It’s part of FIRST’s mission to inspire others about science and technology, and encourage them to be leaders, and as teams part of FIRST, we believe that it’s essential to stay true to its values and mission,” junior Yedoh Kang said in an e-mail interview.

Heads of the StuyPULSE marketing team, senior Courtney Chiu and sophomore Lamia Bushra, presented StuyPulse’s achievements to a small panel of judges.

The theme of this year’s competition was FIRST Steamworks. The goal of the competition was to create a steampunk-themed robot using gears. The robots were tested on certain abilities. “This year the tasks the robot could complete were to pick up gears and assemble them into a machine, pick up wiffle balls and fire them at a goal, and climb up a robot to hit a button,” senior and President of Engineering Jonah Sachs-Westone said. The StuyPulse team worked on the robot over the course of six weeks before shipping it off to Florida.

The team faced a few issues while in Florida and made it to the quarterfinals before being eliminated. A fuse in the control system blew right before the final match, disqualifying them from competing.

In order to be inducted into the FRC Hall of Fame, they must win the Chairman’s Award again at the World Championships. “[The FRC Hall of Fame] features the best of the best, and because we’ve never won before, StuyPulse is definitely working really hard to be a Hall of Fame team,” Kang said.

Before heading off to St. Louis, however, StuyPulse’s next competition is the New York City Regional at the Armory Track and Field Center from April 7 to April 9. Once again, they will be competing amongst top teams from all over the world and be aiming to take home the Chairman’s Award.