The Smithtown Robotics Team (Mechanical Bulls) is an after school program in which students from both HS-East and West come together to fabricate and draft robots. Obviously, this is not an easy thing to do as students stay after school for hours until end furtherly improving their robots. There are three main roles when it comes to Robotics and that is fabrication, drafting, and PR, along with others. Fabricators actually build the robot, drafters design the robot through Computer-Aided Designs, and lastly, PR handles Public Relations. 

Now then, let’s talk about teams and alliances. A team is composed of approximately 40 members. And an alliance is made up of 3 teams. Although our Mechanical Bulls lost the qualification matches at Hofstra, they were selected by a qualifying team ultimately making them qualified for the play-offs! During the play-offs, the Mechanical Bulls and their allies lost two matches and ended up in 15th place out of approximately 50 other teams. So in the end, it was a job well done. On Wednesday, March 29, 2023 and for the next 3 days, our Mechanical Bulls will be heading out of state for the Tech Valley Regional in Albany, New York at the MVP Arena for this year’s game “Charged Up.” 

What are the rules and win requirements for Charged Up? Well, teams must build a robot from scratch often through trial and error. Two alliances of three teams each compete to score points by having their robot score cubes and cones into their grids. Obviously, the robot must first be able to do so. The alliances earn additional points when their robots are docked or engaged with their charge stations. During the first fifteen seconds of the match, the robots are autonomous. It is only until the remaining two minutes and fifteen seconds when the drive team, the ones who control the robot, manually control it. 

In the end, the team with the most points wins. So best of luck to our Mechanical Bulls and allies!