(New Rochelle, NY – March 7) – Congratulations to the Salesian Eagle One robotics team for reaching the final round of its Parkway Division at the FTCNJ State Championships. Out of 24 teams in its division, the team ranked second. Only the top four best teams were chosen to compete against each other in the semifinal rounds. These top four teams are captains who can choose two other teams to be part of their alliance. As the second captain, Salesian chose RedBots from Parsippany High School and team Cosmic Goose from Glen Rock High School (both in New Jersey). They won hard-fought semifinal matches and won the best two out of three. They then moved on to the final round to compete against the first Alliance team but lost to three very good and experienced teams. Nonetheless, Salesian earned finalist medals for reaching this far.
As a rookie team, this is a wonderful accomplishment particularly for each of the team members and Salesian High School as a whole. A special shout-out to the team members, who are all juniors: Aidan O'Driscoll (captain, builder), Aaron Jiang (programmer), Nick Sanchez (driver), Eric Deda (builder, wiring specialist), Kenneth Paredez (programmer), and Ken Nze (website developer). Thank you also to their coach, Fr. Paul Chu, SDB. Congratulations on a very successful robotics season spanning September to March! The community looks forward to more future successes!