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Front Page, Above the Fold: Eagle Tribune Covers Robotics Competition

05.04.26

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Spectators were constantly crowding the game board to see the students’ hard work get put to the test, as competing schools’ bots went head-to-head in matches throughout the double-elimination tournament.

A separate section of the room buzzed with last-minute adjustments — an area tagged as “the pit” served as a workbench for the teams to troubleshoot, tighten screws and rewrite code between matches. Marked off-limits to adults and coaches, it was a space entirely run by the competitors, where quick thinking could make or break the next round.

The competition itself played out like a carefully coded dance, with only anticipation as students stood over the board to witness if their coding would execute flawlessly or not.

Each team built two robots to take part in a “warehouse” challenge, where their creations had to navigate a multilayered grid scattered with balls and poms. Their task: gather, sort and deliver the items in designated zones for points.

“The idea of the program is to empower kids to build autonomous robots, to work together, to solve each and every problem they encounter,” KISS Institute for Practical Robotics’ Steve Goodgame said.

Goodgame, alongside his wife, Carol, acted as officials and announcers for the matchups on Saturday, setting the stage for each duo of robotics clubs.

“Robotics empowers kids to take the laws, theories, steps, equations, and tricks they learn in the classroom — across math, physics, engineering, and more — and apply them, creatively and collaboratively,” said YDO Director of STEM Programs Don Rhine. “At YDO, we use robotics to tie together so many of our STEM classes because it’s multidisciplinary, challenging, and, most importantly, it’s fun!”

YDO, a Lawrence-based nonprofit serving students in grades 3 through 12, offers programming in STEM, arts and leadership. Their kids were among the many squads competing over the weekend as the boys on YDO’s middle school team, the Llamatics, were rushing up and down the floor to tweak their robot.

“Things are good. We had some problems, and we had some obstacles, but we got the job done.” Adrian Espinal of the Llamatics said.

While they revisited their coding, a teammate, Elias Genao, pointed out how even the littlest oversight could derail a match, but the last-second fixes are par for the course.

“Sometimes, like the smallest thing, like if we didn’t tighten a screw tight enough, it could mess up our whole game,” Genao said.

His teammate, Joel Chalas Severino, added, “There’s going to be mistakes regardless. It’s about how fast you can get it done.”

Despite being a team comprised of middle schoolers, the Llamatics take the challenge of competing against high school students head-on. Severino said that he loves the competitive aspect of it and that facing off against the older groups pushes them to work more diligently.

The team said they logged well over a hundred hours preparing for the tournament, fine-tuning their robots ahead of the unpredictable nature of game day.

Nearby, parents watched the matches as spectators, rooting for the children’s bots to get the job done.

“They have to decide what they’re going to build, they have to do the programming and have the initiative,” said Amy Wehe, whose seventh-grade son, Max, competed with Hawthorne Brooke Middle School. “They have some help, but they have to be the ones in charge.”

Teams from schools including Tyngsboro High, Malden Catholic, Malden High, Pembroke High, Portsmouth Abbey School and Winthrop High rounded out the field, each bringing their own engineered approach to the challenge.

Tim Jean/Staff Photos