Servite’s robotics team, known as the Friarbots, co-hosted and participated in the fifth year of Beach Blitz, an off-season robotics competition. This year, due to the pandemic, it was held virtually. Over 30 teams from as far as Michigan and many from Southern California made robots and participated in other judged activities from their remote locations throughout the weekend.
The Friarbots participated with 4 robot designs resulting in some impressive accomplishments. Team B with Matthew Vu ’21, Lucas Brusa-O’Connell ’22 and Aryan Khemani ’24, developed a robot design and presented to the judges. Team D with Minseung Kim ’22, Jake Ratzlaff ’24, and Aiden Vega ’24, developed a simple but very effective robot to climb the pole in a couple seconds winning their first round competition. Team E with Maxwell Beckman ’24 and Jessica Del Pilar ’24 (Rosary) designed and built a unique robot that utilized elastic surgical tubing to power their robot up the pole. They dazzled the judges with details of their robot design and development decisions and won the Beach Blitz Creativity award. Team D with Cruz Abobo ’22, Mark Ghebrial ’22 and John Carlson ’24, created a 3D printed robot that utilized a single drive wheel and unique clamshell design to grip the pole and climb five feet in one second. After successfully climbing faster than four other teams, they made it to the finals match where they lost by the narrowest margin in a photo finish to take second place in the 2020 Beach Blitz virtual minibot competition.
The Friarbots also had team members and mentors participate as volunteers, judges, workshop presenters and panelists. Thank you for your investment and helping make this a successful event to help local teams demonstrate their skills. What a great performance, congratulations!
