Largest one day off-season Robotics Event in the Country to be held at North Brunswick Township High

By ARUSHI BHATIA, Raider Robotix student contributor

October 31, 2018

North Brunswick Township High School’s FIRST Championship team FRC Team 25 - Raider Robotix will be hosting their 17th annual event, Brunswick Eruption, on Saturday, November 10th, 8 AM at their home high school. This is the largest FIRST off-season robotics competition in the United States - 42 teams from around the tri-state area are scheduled to compete for the last time in the 2018 FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) game: FIRST PowerUp. All FIRST events are free and open to the public.

During the competition, Raider Robotix will be collecting lightly worn or usable shoes donated by the teams and by the community. The shoes will be recycled to communities that need them through Shoebox.org. Concession stands with food and drinks, as well as tee-shirts, are available and will help to support Raider Robotix to compete in their upcoming 2019 season. A Brunswick Eruption tradition will continue: The Evil Sundae contest will occur during the competition lunch break where volunteer members from each team tries to eat an “Evil Sundae”, made up of an unusual combination of edible foods, as quickly as possible! The winning survivor of this contest will be awarded a trophy.

The FIRST PowerUp game is played by two alliances against each other, and each alliance is made up of three robotics teams. The video-game theme of the game encompasses cubes, a switch, and a scale. The switch and scale are see-saws like objects and teams try to put as many cubes as they can to tilt the scale in their favor. Teams can also get “power-ups” from a vault which is outside the field. Robots put cubes through an exchange where human players take them and put them into the vault to achieve different powerups to help boost scores. The last 30 seconds robots rush to try to climb to achieve those extra points.

During the Brunswick Eruption event, the FIRST Mid-Atlantic Robotics district is also hosting a FTC (FIRST TECH Challenge) competition in another area of the high school. If you love robots and STEM, November 10 is the day to come out to the North Brunswick High School to join all the fun! Doors open at 9 am. Raider Robotix encourages people of all ages to visit and learn what FIRST Robotics is all about!

Contact Karen Ramsden-Zahler for further information at karen@zahler.com or 908-902-8548.