Robotics at Yeshivat Frisch is having a year like none other, with over 50 students attending weekly meetings and forming 11 different teams. The highest level team, the FTC (First Tech Challenge) Frisch CouGears team #15762, now in its third year, competes against public and private schools from across the state of New Jersey and recently had its first match of the year.

Navigating COVID-19 has been a unique experience for the team, as they have had to find appropriate space to build the robot and conduct practice matches while safely social distancing. But, as always, the team is proud of its ability to adapt and problem solve. After all, problem solving is the main skill practiced by the team as they design a robot to perform at a high level. After building three different robots this season, the team successfully iterated their design to perform well in scoring points for the team.

“We have grown and developed as a team, each year better and more improved from the last,” said CouGears team member Nate Mohl ‘22. “Our team has worked very hard since September, brainstorming, building and coding a working robot. We saw all of our hard work, long hours and dedication pay off.”

The Frisch CouGears held their first official match of the season on February 24. In matches, different schools’ robots compete and score points against each other by shooting rings into goals and moving objects around the playing field. The programming team develops code to move the robot autonomously for a portion of the match and drivers use remote controls to operate the robot the remainder of the time. The CouGears say they look forward to fine tuning their robot even further over the coming weeks, before the next live-streamed match.