TA’s Robotic Teams in the Heat of the Season, State Championship Coming Up
January 13, 2025
Thetford Academy’s robotics team is in the heat of their season right now, with just two meets to go before the VT/NH State Championship.
In their most recent meet on January 4, the team took five robots to the “Bow Bot Bout” in Bow, NH to compete against 32 more from other schools. The first success of the day belonged to TA’s middle-school team 4886A (Meredith Sloop, Peter Horan, Ira Corbett, Connor Abraham, and Ruby Cushman), who scored enough points and won enough matches in the meet’s qualification rounds to earn their first shot at competing in the elimination series. Though they lost in the round of 16, it was a great accomplishment for them and a showcase of their progress this season.
The high school teams, in what may be a first, eliminated all of the other schools’ machines in their competitions, leaving four Thetford Academy teams to face off in the final 2v2 competition. Predictably, TA both won and lost that one.
A smaller contingent traveled to Springfield, VT last weekend to compete in the “River Valley RADs” event. TA’s leading team 4886S (Connor Kutter-Walker and Duncan MacPhee) selected our 7th grade team 4886P (Connor Sansom, Bennett Mellen, and Seeley Quenneville) for the elimination series – and the alliance went on to win it outright. That win qualified the 7th grade team for the state championship.
There are two more meets before the State Championship: This Saturday, TA travels to Belmont, NH and then on February 1, heads to Northwood, NH. Four of our six teams have now qualified for the NH/VT state championship. The remaining two will be vying for their own state spots at these last two competitions.
Looking further ahead, the NH/VT state championship will be held at Manchester Community College in Manchester, NH on February 15th. At that event, TA’s teams will be trying to earn some of NH/VT’s five spots to the World Championship. It should be a very exciting meet and Thetford Academy’s team is poised to do well. As always, the meet is free and open to spectators, with the exciting elimination rounds likely beginning around 2:30 p.m.
