The Hamilton Robotics Scrimmage
Photo of the Hamilton Robotics Scrimmage. Photo from Lucas Polczynski.
Zoe Dickert
On February 20th, Hamilton High School held its mini-regional Hamilton Robotics Scrimmage. We’ve interviewed a freshman on the team, Lucas Polczynski, who has given us a closer look at this exciting event. From funding and club advice to scrimmage details and more! Keep reading if you’re into all things STEM.
What exactly is a robotics scrimmage?
So we host what’s called the Sussex Scrimmage every year. It helps with funding for our program and brings down travel fees. Basically, it’s a mini-tournament. We have 26 teams, including us. We invite them, and when they come they test out their robots on an actual playfield that our team builds. And we’re one of the only teams in this area that I’m aware of, that actually does that-which is really cool.
What is your favorite part about robotics?
There are so many things that I love about robotics. The people are awesome, everyone’s just super nice, inclusive, and overall just amazing people.
Was it easy getting to know everyone when joining the robotics team?
Yes! It took me about a week, it was very smooth sailing.
Any advice for incoming freshmen who’ll be joining robotics next school year?
I’d tell any freshman to choose what they really want to do in the robotics field. If they don’t want to work on the engineering side of this club, then they shouldn’t. If they want to do code instead, then they should! If you decide to pick what your friends pick, you’re not going to have a lot of fun. You want to have fun with what you’re really interested in.
What was the best part about the scrimmage?
Well I’m a little broken right now, so while at the scrimmage I was able to get some really cool shots of the robot moving around and doing cool stuff, and I recorded some matches as well. That’ll allow us to do a lot more with our testing.
What’s something you’d like people to know about robotics?
Image of a robot created by Hamilton team members. Photo from Lucas Polczynsk.
You don’t have to be a geek or genius to join. Robotics is a learning experience, and you don’t have to know everything about it right away. That’s a common misconception that I’ve had when trying to convince people to join the club. You don’t have to be crazy smart, all you have to know is to not make mistakes and dangerous decisions.
What’s the community like in robotics?
Welcoming for sure. Everyone’s understanding and they know that you have other commitments outside of robotics, as most of us do. They get it, they understand that other things can happen. Way back when I had Covid they were super understanding of it and said, “Yeah, just get well soon!” Instead of, “Aw, you’re going to miss this and this!” Just amazing people and I’m very thankful for them and everybody on the team. To quote my head advisor Dave Woods, “It is the hardest fun you will ever have.”
Will you pursue any of the aspects of robotics in the future?
For sure! I plan on going into something probably in the IT field. So my robotics skills will definitely come in handy there. I was hoping robotics would narrow down my options in this field but it actually opened up more opportunities.
Lastly, what’s the purpose of a scrimmage for those in robotics?
So last year, we didn’t have a robotics season at all. It was basically an off-year, we didn’t do anything. A lot of us are new to it. We have a very new engineering team, everybody except one individual in electrical was just starting robotics. To clarify, that is only from the electrical side. So, none of us knew what we were doing. None of us had been to a robotics competition before. It was much different from the small robot competition which is called FTC, First Tech Challenge. The robots are much bigger and there are many different aspects to the scrimmage which you don’t necessarily see in FTC.
Check out the video below for more Robotics action!
