A buzz of excitement and the hum of machines took over the Tappan STEM Commons from Friday, Jan. 31, to Sunday, Feb. 1, as 24 robotics teams from across Massachusetts competed in the Brookline Robo Rally. The annual event was hosted by the school’s four FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) teams, the Brookline Bots (BBots), Cloud9, Brookline TNT Robotics and Brookline Firecrackers, with support from the Brookline Robotics Initiative (BRI).
Teams from various towns set up tables across the first floor, with two spaces available for practice and a larger one reserved for the official competition in the Black Box. Robots competed in matches of four teams that had formed two alliances to earn points. This year’s challenges were focused on the theme of archaeology, and the main way to score was by taking artifacts off the ground and shooting them into their alliance’s corresponding goal.
The event hosted at Brookline is a qualifier, one of many held across the country annually, through which teams compete to secure a top-three ranking and a chance to compete at the state level. From that stage onwards, teams vie for points to earn their spots at international competitions. BBots team coach and member of the BRI Adam Rizika has served as an adviser to the team since its founding seven years ago. Since then, he said the team has expanded significantly and has won awards across many categories, most notably the Motivate Award for their community engagement.
“This is the third year Brookline has hosted the [state] qualifier. Hosting is a massive undertaking; it involves hundreds of volunteers, thousands of dollars in food and months of preparation. Students across the teams ran the event this year, and it went better than ever. It’s a huge learning experience,” Rizika said.
Senior Callie Wu and junior Ananya Rajaraman are two of the co-captains for the BBots team. They said they have made it their mission to increase the robotics presence in Brookline, whether through outreach movements or other events and fundraisers.
“We’ve been hosting events for a few years now, and each one is a different experience. Each year, we’ve improved in terms of organization and staying on schedule. There’s a lot of coordination involved: assigning teams, scheduling inspections and judging and organizing awards,” Wu said.
Senior and co-captain of the Cloud9 FTC team Elana Braun-Jones said the qualifier is an awesome way to bring awareness to Brookline’s robotics efforts.
“It’s great to see teams from other schools, especially since some are coming from far away. It’s always fun to meet them and realize how big the community is. It’s easy to forget, but robotics is a worldwide thing, and that’s really cool,” Braun-Jones said.
Rizika said that the BBots’ emphasis on community is important and their efforts as a team are what have gotten them so far. According to her, this included their advancement to the Premier Event, an international competition in Canada, last year.
“The BBots genuinely enjoy being together,” Rizika said. “They care about camaraderie, learning, outreach and improving their skills. They’ve helped start other teams like TNT, Firecrackers and Cloud9. All the teams collaborate and support one another. It’s a co-opetition: they compete but help each other succeed.”
Wu said that their independence as a team and being an all-girls team has really set them apart, as they’ve led their own initiatives and worked to spread STEM throughout Brookline. They have helped kickstart teams for middle schoolers and run summer camps.
“One major thing that makes us stand out is that we’re an all-girls team. That’s pretty special, and we focus a lot on outreach to engage students and children in the greater Boston area,” Wu said. “Since our founding, we’ve helped increase the number of FLL (FIRST LEGO League) teams from about one to over 30.”
Looking to the future, Braun-Jones said that she hopes Cloud9 will continue to be a space for anyone passionate about robotics to explore their interest, regardless of skill or experience. She said she also has similar hopes for the students in Brookline’s middle and elementary school systems, since exposure at a young age is important.
“For Brookline, I hope more people realize that robotics and STEM aren’t only for people who are immediately good at it,” Braun-Jones said. “It’s more than science and math; it’s problem solving, perseverance and a lot of soft skills that are useful to develop early.”
