The Cherry Hill East Robotics Club got off to a great start on Sunday Nov. 23 at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, the site of its first competitive event of the season.

The Robotics Club is made up of students from all grades. The club has won the New Jersey state championship many years in a row and has consistently sent teams to the world championships, which are held in other places around the country.

The club builds robots that are used to compete against each other in different games. The game at this competition was called Skyrise. During this game there are two teams or alliances that each have with two robots. The two robots work together to score the most points to defeat the other team. Points are scored by carrying cubes and placing them into designated areas.

In total, sixteen teams went to the competition and three of them were from East. The three teams from East are identified as 2616F, 2616D and 2616G. Overall, 2616F dominated during the qualification matches, finishing with a record of 8-1, and ended up winning the whole tournament and the excellence award as well.

The members of the 2616F team include Jason Fisch (’16), Jack Siu (’16), Nikola Kosaric (’16), Bryan Cheung (’16), Jesse Stiller (’16) and Michael Hulet (’16).

All three of the teams that represented East at the event were among the nine teams that qualified for the playoffs.

“Our club is the most successful Robotics club in the state of New Jersey,” said Mr. Joseph Dilks, the club’s advisor and a math teacher at East. Dilks was very pleased with the team’s performance at the event and he believes that the team’s success is very typical for them.

“We have a robot on the winning alliance pretty much every tournament,” said Mr. Dilks.

As a result of their victory, 2616F has qualified for the state championships, which are held right here at Cherry Hill East in February. The club will look to keep this momentum going as the season progresses, and aims to stay just as dominant at future tournaments and bring East many more prestigious awards.