This year, the Wayne Hills Patriots Robotics team was created, the school’s first.  Mr. Yost, a passionate robotics teacher at WHHS and the main coach of this talented group, started this robotics team which consists of eleven people, but only three drivers: Marlin Kalutota, Sunny Patel, and Noah Ng.

The entire team worked together to build a robot which they use to compete against other schools across New Jersey.  During the competitions, the robot is used to achieve a variety of different challenges corresponding to a different amount of points for each challenge.  The Patriots participated in a qualifying competition this past season in Marlton, New Jersey where thirty different robotics teams contended for advancing to the state championship tournament at NJIT.  Only five teams advanced from this qualifying competition, the Patriots being one out of the five.

This is quite rare as “a rookie team going to states is huge” said team member Marlin Kalutota.

Unfortuantely, although the team was eligible for the state tournament after succeeding in the qualifying, the robot’s “arm snapped during a practice run and during the actual game [the team] had connection issues” said team member Sunny Patel.  However, this is only a minor setback.  The team has a lot of confidence going into next season and hopes to advance through states, ultimately competing in the world competition.

The team’s next season starts on September 9, 2016.  Be sure to support your classmates and root the team on, in an effort toward helping the Patriots achieve their goal.