Spotlight on Clubs and Committees: Robotics

The competition, which consists of teams from across the State of Delaware, asks teams to perform a variety of tasks on a field and earn as many possible points with their robot that they designed, built, and programmed since the beginning of the school year. In addition to advancing all the way to the finals, The Bad News Bots won the Judges Award for most artistic design! 

Beginning in September, led by co-clerk's Macy Volp ’22 and Tony Cheng ’22, this group met every Sunday for two hours to work on their robot, enhance their engineering skills, and prepare for the State Championship. In addition to their work on Sundays, they also took part in various scrimmages in order to best prepare for the intensity of the State Championship. Faculty advisor and WFS Upper School Computer Science teacher Jenks Whittenburg notes, “I enjoy working with the Robotics team because, so often, programming, physical computing or engineering is an isolated endeavor for the students. They have a great deal of control over test parameters and the overall environment. In an FTC competition, however, the students get to see all of their hard work come alive in a chaotic public forum. Their robot is on a field with three other teams while being surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd. It's very far removed from anything we, as teachers, can recreate in a classroom and everyone benefits so much from the experience.”

Matt Cauchy, who also serves as a faculty advisor to the club and teaches US Science, loves working with the Robotics Club because of the rich learning opportunities that it offers WFS students.He states, “While students learn critical engineering skills such as programming and 3D Computer Aided Design, they also learn the importance of teamwork, leadership, independence, initiative, and resilience.” 

The team consisted of the following members (shown in the photo, left to right): Gabe Fletcher ’25, Devin Wallace ’24, Tony Cheng ’22, Frank Murphy ’24, Xingyu Wang ’24, and David Wu ’23. Not pictured: Tauson Biggs ’24, Kat Pitts ’25, Macy Volp ’22, and Collier Zug ’24. 

Congrats!