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Community Corner

Community Update

On Sunday March 24th, 2014, Nonnewaug High School’s FIRST Robotics Competition team, Team Beta, battled their way to the finals at the Southington District event. Just two weeks before, the team had a devastating finish of last place at the Groton District event. However, the team put all of their efforts together to prepare themselves for their upcoming competition in Southington.
In the competition, teams competed in the challenge called Aerial Assist. In this event, teams shoot exercise balls that are two feet in diameter into goals that are about seven feet off the ground. They also had the option to shoot the balls over a truss that is located in the middle of the field about five feet off the ground. Teams are given extra points for passing the ball among other teams’ robots.
At the event, Team Beta was excited to see how much higher their robot was in the leader boards than it was at the Groton event. “I thought it was a huge success,” said Rebecca DiSarro, president of Team Beta. “We got organized and worked very had for the weeks before the competition.” DiSarro, along with the rest of the team, was happy to see their robot compete with such great success, despite the problems their robot had just weeks before. 
At the previous competition, the team encountered numerous mechanical and programming issues. They also found that they lacked a lot of spirit. However, the team came to realize these issues and knew that they had to fix them for their upcoming competition. They broke off into several subgroups to address all of the issues, and by the time their competition came, they had fixed all of the problems. Due to this dedication, Team Beta’s robot advanced all the way to the final round, winning the first match of a best of three before being edged out in the final two matches.
“We had a strong strategy as a team to get things done,” said Michael Murphy, team advisor. “When problems arose, we were quick to fix them.” Murphy was happy to see the team’s victory and how excited the students were about their robot.
Team Beta learned a very valuable lesson about not giving up. At this competition, they discovered how strong they are if they work as a team to get things done. This event was motivational for the team and taught them a huge life lesson. They plan to look back at this event in the years to come, because they now know what they are really capable of achieving.

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