On Sunday March 17, 2024, the 15 students of the Varsity/Mentor Team 9848 GearView made Clearview history at the NJ State Championship at Hillsboro High School.
This team is especially unique because it operates under a horizontal leadership structure with all students taking the responsibility and leadership of captains while utilizing agile methodology and scrum meetings to coordinate work.
At the competition, the drive team, Dion Christoforatos (arm driver), Noah Smith (chassis driver), Nanda Guntapalli (drive coach), and Kyle Gray (human player) performed phenomenally, even when their alliance partner's robot had difficulties and was inoperable for two matches. Programmers Ben Weng and Shawn Zou programmed on the spot to ensure the robot was coordinated with their alliance partners, and scouters Austin Shenk, Aleksei Mordovin, Xander Atkinson, and Joanna Chen networked with other teams, ensuring our robots were compatible. Pit crew Ava Culling, Quinten Stewart, and Nick Gelormini ensured the robot was in perfect condition between each match, and CAD Team Shane Shenk and Alexander Vu demonstrated the 3D model to all participants. Nick Gelormini became a Dean's list finalist, a prestigious award given only to 4 students in the entire State, advancing him to the World Championship individually. This is an unprecedented 3rd year in a row that a 9848 team member has become a Dean's List Finalist (Nanda Guntupalli in 2023 and Vincent Fox in 2022).
In addition to their field performance, the team worked tirelessly over the past few months to create an engineering portfolio which can be viewed here: 9848 NJ State Championship Portfolio documenting their hard work in all aspects of the competition, both technical and non-technical. The morning of the competition, the team gave a flawless presentation to the judging panel, and their performance on the field along with their portfolio and judging presentation earned them the 1st place Inspire Award, the highest honor of the competition naming 9848 the best all around team in the state out of 178 teams and earning them the first advancement (of only 4!) to the FIRST World Championship in Houston on April 16-20!
