Long Beach Robotics Success!

On March 21st-23rd, Long Beach High School’s very own Robotics Team competed at the Mack Sports Exhibition center at Hofstra University. I had the privilege to interview both Mr. Johnson and members of the team to hear all about their celebratory success!

“A typical meeting will consist of different tasks being tackled, whether it is designing a robot element, a program to run it, or simply machining the parts we need to build the robot.” says Mr. Johnson, co-advisor of Long Beach’s Riptide Robotics team alongside Mr. Lerner. “We meet everyday during the three month build season and typically every Tuesday at 3:00 PM the rest of the time. When we are getting ready for an event, we work basically around the clock, weekends, vacations, late nights...building a successful robot takes time!” 

Since founding the team in 2019, Mr. Johnson shares it has been nothing but an amazing experience. “I am able to meet more students than I typically would with the subject I teach. Robotics has also afforded us new opportunities for new equipment that allow us to be competitive.” Some of these students he’s referring to include Vincent Napolitano and Keyi Chen. 

“This year is my second year on the Riptide Robotics team,” says Vincent Napolitano, a junior who is one of the social media managers for the club, “and last week was very exciting and fun and I would consider it a success!” But what does a typical robotics competition look like? Napolitano describes the structure of said events as  “consisting of a bunch of qualifying matches where teams fight for ranking points and then the top ranked teams select other teams to join them in alliances. These alliances participate in an elimination bracket until a winner is crowned.” With a match as driven as this, it’s no surprise the team is so close. “There is a lot of communication between the teams and everyone is encouraged to help each other out! It’s a lot of fun and I can’t wait for next year’s season!” 

A junior who has been an active member of Robotics for three years now and captain since sophomore year, Keyi Chen explains the preparation and time management involved. “It's almost like a sport when it comes to the amount of time dedication… It's been a long ride of late nights and early mornings but it's all worth it in the end.” And all the work paid off as Chen recalls, “We competed at the FIRST Long Island Regional and returned home ranked 7th out of 49 local and international teams, marking our team's best performance to date! Two years ago, we ranked 22nd, last year 16th, and this year we secured the 7th seed. This was our 3rd year in competition and our success is only possible thanks to the dedication of our mentors, Mr. Johnsen and Mr. Lerner, our local sponsors, the school district's support, and our brilliant team members.” 

“It's exciting to see the team grow and advance quickly,” says Johnson. “Our members are awesome, each person involved with Riptide Robotics has a key role in our success, whether it is scouting, building, coding, or designing the robot, each person on our team contributes something important. I would encourage anyone with an interest in robotics, design, machining, or fabrication to come down and help us out. This year was our greatest success yet and I look forward to the future!” Congratulations to all the members of Robotics for their hard work and win as well as a big shout out to the LBHS Band led by Mr. Bragino and Mrs. Rynecki for their lively performance at the event. Great job! 

(If anyone is interested in joining LBHS Robotics, meetings are held on Tuesdays right after school!)