Engineering for Grade 3 to 12
We have actively participated in the various regional and state tournament since 2005. All participants are our roboclub members. The two major annual competitions, which we have participated, including RobocupJunior(R) and First LEGO(R) League. Read our QnA Page if you are interested in being part of our teams.
Major Goals
- Sustaining motivation and inspiring more inquiries in in-depth knowledge about robotics;
- With the appropriate robotics competition, we encouraging students to delve in learning about full automation, and exploration in the realm of artificial intelligence.
- Strengthen competitiveness in science and technology, with integrity, sportsmanship, and professionalism.
Our motto
"Learning is like breathing! Using others' success as inspiration and motivation. Competing against yourself and using your past achievement as a gauge for improvement, not others' ".
RCJ vs. FLL
Without going into long detailed comparison. Here is only a very short view.Who they are...
First LEGO League (FLL) FLL Introduces students (9 to 14) to real-world engineering challenges by building LEGO-based robots to complete tasks on a thematic playing field. FLL is a junior division of the FIRST Robotics Competition.
RoboCupJunior (RCJ) - RCJ is the grade-school level from the world renounced A.I intensive RoboCup game which launched its first official competitive game in 1997. This initiative is to foster the learning in artificial intelligence and robotics research by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined.
Our participation level...
We participate only in 9 to 14 division in FIRST, i.e. First LEGO League. The high school division game focuses mostly on mechanics, often machines are in industrial quality. Thus, it is very costly. Meanwhile, participants do remote controlling during most part of the game, not autonomous.
We participated in both primary (up to 13) and secondary (14-17) divisions in RCJ. Storming Robots focuses on the development in the self-awareness of the robots. Therefore, the natural choice is the RCJ - high school division.
The game itself (the technical aspect)...
The FLL fields and locations of objects, if any, are 100% predefined. In FLL, objects, if any, are given an exact dimension and location. Therefore, dead-Reckoning method, (relying on motor rotations) is mostly used. Thus, the robustness of the machine itself (the drive train and gear system) is a highly important in order to allow consistent rotation and movements.
RCJ's game environment is filled with variable elements. In other words, dimensions and locations of objects are unknown in the most part of the game. Therefore, participants must focus on robot's self-awareness of the environment with various sensors and needs very robust programming skill.
RCJ has much heftier touch penalty, while FLL is more lenient in this aspect.
Hardware / Software...
In FLL, participants must use hardware/software dictated by the organization. In RCJ, they are the participants' choice.
Game's theme...
FLL focuses on the simulation of various real-world topics using robotics and require research work on the topics itself. Topics are renewed every year. In RCJ, the theme does not change every year to allow participants to continue improving their algorithms and strive for the learning of artificial intelligence.
Your advertising sponsorship will:
- develop your brand loyalty among the families who are committed to their children's education in engineering;
- make your brand known among this young demographics;
- help us to build a technology savvy generation
- Your sponsorship not only will assist our participation in competitions, but also assist in exploring advanced learning from various professional experts in science and technology arenas.
Sponsorship Levels:
| Storming Sponsor | $1000 |
|
|
| Platnium Sponsor | $400 |
|
|
| Gold Sponsor | $150 |
|
|
| silver Sponsor | $80 |
|
|
| BAse Sponsor | $50 |
|
|
Your sponsorship is an advertising and/or promotional expense.Logo image must be within 180x100 pixels image size.
At any time and for any reason in its sole discretion, Storming robots reserves the right to refuse any advertising/advertisers
Please contact us if you are interested in sponsoring our competition effort.
Third Places in the Robo-Rescue! ***
| We have 12 teams this year. 10 Rescue teams and 2 Soccer teams.
| |
| The Flyer Windex -Brian, Brady, Doug | Team Scuba - Aum,Uday,Andrew |
| Apollo - Rachel,Seneca,Eric | ImaginaryNumbers - Nikhil S., Rohan, Andre |
| Omega - Michael X,Sunny, David H. | To The M.A.K.S. - Michelle, Ashley, Casey(Katherine) |
| N.E.R.D.S - Elvin,Tanay | Peanut Butter Jelly Time - Luke, Aaditya |
| The Symmetrical Turtles - Akash, Stephen, Dhevin | Pi^3 - Roshun, Salil, Sam |
| The League of Super Evils - Oliver, Marc, Catherine |
The Greater White Shark - Matthew,Avery,Morgan, Ben |
First: Omega Kapa Omega: Michael, Sunny and David H.
Second: The Symmetrical Turtles: Akash, Dhevin, and Stephen.
Third: To The M.A.K.S. - Michelle, Ashley, and Katherine.
Special Remarks:
A lot of thanks to Matthew Goldman who taught both the Symmetrical Turtles and the Pi^3, while he himself is also one of the main developer of the awesome (complex) robosoccer game. He is currently attending 10th Grade at the Bernardsville High School.
There are simply too many impressive and inspiring stories to be covered here to tell how much effort and wonderful work these children have contributed and gained from this year experience. Bravo! Everyone!
Third Places in the Robo-Rescue! ***
*** 2nd Place in the RoboSoccer Event! ***
| RoboCup Junior 2009 | |||
| Stormbotics | Matthew Goldman, Avery Katko, Marc Bruggemann, Oliver Katz | The League of Super Evil | Oliver Katz, David DeKime, Catherine Dai, |
| JustThisCool | Michael Cannizzaro, Morgan Van Blacrum, Nikhil Shah | RoboDragon | Rachel Goldman, Michael Xie, Sunny Aggarwal |
| Team With No Name | Andre Gou, Ben Brown, Nikhil Kapadia | RoboRevolution | David Hua, Aum Chatterjee, Akash Kumar |
| The Intripeds | Tanay Trivedi, Benjamin Wechter, Luke Dai, | BeatU | Andrew Amerman, Eric Ward, Uday Shankar, Brain Breslow, |
| The PopTarts | Douglas Rynar, Colin Reese, Brady Bean | ||
Representing the United States in the RoboCupJunior division of the competition were Andrew Amerman, Sunny Agarwal, Rachel Goldman, Uday Shankar, Michael Xie, and Eric Ward. They competed against other young students their age from over 30 different countries including China, Japan and Germany. Press Release: Star Ledger article Branchburg's Storming Robots take on the World.
Once again, Storming Robots team has won the USA RCJ and is invited to representing the United States at the 2010 World Tournament.
How Storming Robots form teams...
RCJ
RCJ requires individual full understanding of the software and hardware they create. No coach assistance is allowed at the competition. Participants are selected solely by Storming Robots. They must have demonstrated their required maturity level, minimum technical skill, and ability to focus without adult supervision. Thus, all these children have been in Storming Robots roboclub for at least a full year, and usually more. Practice at home is highly recommended.
A single team usually consists of 2 to 4 members.
FLL
FLL is extremely demanding in time at home for research work. More time at home spent on research and presentation work in addition to regular club hours for technical learning at Storming Robots is a must. Therefore, it is important participants are from a centralized community.
Before 2009, members within a single team came from all different areas, from Princeton (45min. S. from us) to Livingston (50min. N. from us). This made gathering for meetings extremely difficult.
Starting in 2009, we coached FLL teams which should only consist of members from a more centralized community. In addition to weekly 2-4hr meetings at Storming Robots, Storming Robots will assist the teams' home coach to conduct research and more practice time closer to home.
If you have a FLL team which needs technical training and coaching assistance, please contact us for details.
*** Awarded the Best Mentor Award! ***
*** Ranked the 10th out of approx. 50 teams in the State Tournment Event! ***
|
|
|
 |
| Working with the team... | The team with a whole group of supportive MOMS! | The Best Coach/Mentor Award | The R2D2 Team |
Storming Robots coached a six-members rookie team of kids aged 9 years old from Livingston area. Despite of being the first time participants, they scored 290 out of 400. This was an impressive score for first-time participants and for such young age.
These kids worked about 6-8 hours per week from September to early November. In the late November, some put in 10-12 hours a week (in additional to regular school hours, homework and many other activities).
Most importantly, this would not have been such a successful experience, if it was not because of the untiring support from all the mothers of these children. These moms did a wonderful job in time management in coordinating additional meetings, organizing project work,etc. A group of most incredible MOMS!
In April 2008, there were 26 teams with 6 from Canada, the rest from NJ/NY.
All kids have done a wonderful job. We had three teams attended this event.
Brief Recap of our experience on the Event Day:
|
||||||
| View our FLL2008 Photos Gallery | 
The Green Hawk! |
| Team Presentation Clip (Smaller size) | Team Presentation Clip (Large size) |
| FLL Competition 2008 | |
|
Team: The Green Hawk (age
8-11): Sunny Aggarwal, Dennis Brookner, Aum Chatterjee, Rachel Goldman,
Akash Kumar, Michael Xie, and Ashley Yang. State Event (Dec,08): We have won the First Place in Teamwork Challenge. Congratulation to the team. At this segment, they were given a secret challenge which was not revealed to anyone but just the team members, not even mentors. They exemplified what a teamwork should be. Regional Event (Nov,08): We were advanced to the State Tournament after being awarded the First Place of the Team Award. Although we did not manage to achieve the highest score, we were the only team managed to perform the two of the three most complex missions with a bi-directional claw. |
sfsfds |
| FLL Competition 2007 |
|
Teams: Falcons (age 11-13): Anurag Anjaria, Dennis Brookner, Michael Cannizzaro, Tristan Duenas, Matthew Goldman, and Morgan Van Blarcum. Metallic Short Circuit Machine (age 10-11): Julian Frost, Rachel
Goldman, Andre Gou, Harry Keats, Roshun Menon and Theo Rabke. |
|
We lost a few weeks of practice due to delivery problems of the fields, and the early time frame for the local event. With the challenge of working with new faces in the teams, and new Mindstorms hardware (NXT instead of RCX), these bright children amazingly managed to get most of the challenges done with only approximately 16-20 hours. 2007 challenge's scoring system is quite complex. We learnt a lot in the process especially in strategic analysis, and teamwork. The MSCM team used RCX. Their bot was equipped with 2 rotation sensors geared up drastically to achieve precision, 1 single rotational degree (from RCX rotation sensor) ~= 1.5mm. Wow! Highlights
|
 |
Special appreciation to Tristan's mother, Diane Duena. She has
taken great quality pictures for our teams since 2006.
She also volunteered to burn all the pics onto a CD for each kid in the
Falcons Team (Tristan's team).
Tristan (residence in Princeton area) has been our roboclub member from 2005 to 2008. |
in the Regional event
| FLL Competition 2006 |
|
Teams:
Discovery (age 12-14): Mark Bruggemann, Tristan Duenas, Avery Katko, Matthew Goldman, Ryan Sandor, Caleb Shimomura, Phillips Stankus, and James Wittel. Roboteers (age 9): Brady Beans, Dennis Brookner, Harry Keats, Zach Katz, Matthew Schueler BuckyBot (age 9-11): Alexander Ali, Anthony Ali, Rachael Goldman, Andre Gou, Kevin Kober, Jeffrey Kober, Theo Rabke, Alex Sudyn, and Karlin Yeh Highlights The teams consisted of children from diversed areas, from Livingston (50 min. North of the center) to Princeton (50 min. South of the center). Thus, we managed to get together to work on this for less than 30 hours before the event, while minimum 60 hours are recommended. Nevertheless, they all did wonderful job. Roboteers ranked 2nd in the local event. BuckyBot ranked 5th in the local event, and 12th in the state event. Discovery ranked 3rd in the local event, 9th in the state event. There were 50 teams in the state event. |
50 Registered Teams
View the Teams Pictures...
| FLL Competition 2005 | |
|
FIRST LEGO League
Robotics State Tournament held in the Mt. Olive High School on December 10,
2005. Our team name is “Stormbotics”, and consists of eight children aged from
10 to 14 from different townships and schools including home schools,
private, and public schools. Team - Stormbotics: Eileen Chow, Matthew Goldman, Gawain Lau, Garrick Lau, Andrew Yuen, Johnny Wang, and James Wittel.
Even though this was our first robotics competition, the team ranked the
10th place out of 50 registered teams. |
|
| Highlights We all thought one instance happened in the the teamwork presentation session was rather funny: |
 |
|
>Judge: "what is your robot's name?".
>Teamsters (looked into each others' eyes and answered with puzzling tone: "... we don't have a name for the robot... it is our robot...". >Judge: "... didn't you kids have fun doing robotics?..." >Teamsters: "uh... we did have a lot of fun building and programming robots....we just did not bother with a name... " |
|
Advertising Sponsors
Thomas Distributing
Ask us for a
5% discount code for purchasing from Thomas Distributing
