Deerfield Robotics Takes on New England Premier

Following its success this year in qualifiers and states, the 2024-2025 Robotics team has become the first in Deerfield history to qualify for the FIRST Tech Challenge New England Premier Event and the first team to qualify for states since 2019.

Although the Robotics team members have found themselves successful in breaking school-records this spring, the process and preparation done beforehand make up a large portion of their effort. Robotics Co-Captain Austin Zhang ’25 (who is also a Scroll Layout Editor) stated, “Preparation starts from the spring term the year prior.” He added, “We do a bunch of inventory or work on projects to put on the robot in the next year. [Co-Captain] Kevin [Yang ’25, who is also the Online Editor of the Scroll] was doing a bunch of coding last spring.”

The Fall Term is when new interest and participation are built towards robotics and is also when the team maps out the rest of the year. This fall, “we got a bunch of new people, and we trained them. We basically try to build interest in robotics,” Zhang said. Further steps, consisting of brainstorming, early prototype building, and a preview of competition were also constructed. Additionally, the team collaborated and competed alongside Eaglebrook and other teams in western Massachusetts. This season, the team hosted one scrimmage against Eaglebrook and participated in another in Foxborough, Massachusetts, called Robot in 3 Weeks.

The team usually finalizes the robot in early Winter Term and participates in two state qualifiers. Regarding the competitions, Zhang said, “We typically go to the first qualifier, find a lot of problems with our robot, and then we fix those problems.” Zhang noted that the team also prepares a five-minute presentation for the judges at tournaments and an engineering notebook. “We basically have to compile a portfolio of all the work that we’ve done and all the thought processes behind it, the engineering design process and stuff like that.”

By the second qualifier this year, Yang described that, “We already improved [the robot] already...to the point where there wasn’t much to do in hardware,” he said. He continued, “We actually mostly improved the software, especially the autonomous stuff.” This year, the team finished in first place during the second qualifying competition, propelling the team into the States. Their performance at States then earned them a place to compete in the New England Premier Event.

After the competitions, the team transitioned into the off-season Spring Term. Yang detailed the team’s spring activities, saying, “Most of the team doesn’t do spring robotics... We had to do some extra work during the spring term to clean up our workspace, unpacking our materials.” He added, “We actually don’t disassemble our robot until next year, because that gives new people some experience with unscrewing screws as well... And they can see what we did last year.” Yang cited that much of the team’s success stems from “three-year or four-year seniors that were on the team that had a lot of robotics and engineering experience... and that’s one of the important things of the team.” Addressing newcomers, he said, “We need people... [who are] very passionate and learn a lot on their own.”

In light of the Robotics team’s recent successes, there are also identified areas for improvement. “A big problem that we had in prior years is making sure everyone on the team is involved, and that includes new people as well,” Zhang said. “There are some people that have a robotics background but haven’t done robotics at Deerfield. Making sure their voices are heard is like a big part of the early stages of what we do.”

Yang elaborated on his own future aspirations of the team, stating, “It’s a good experience, and I hope this [Robotics] can be useful. It’s definitely useful, but unfortunately, it’s not as much of a culture as a sport. I hope that can improve.” He added, “A lot of other schools have robotics programs and classes. If the school wants to build this program further, then that is the next step.”