A Nod to Innovation: Robotics Team Heads to Connecticut State Championship

12/18/2025

The Upper School Robotics Team competed in the Vex V5 December Push Back Qualifier Tournament and successfully earned the Innovate Award, qualifying for the Connecticut State Championship.

The two Hamden Hall teams, 70258A- Hivemind and 70258B- The Orb-Weavers, competed against 75 teams from schools around the state at Masuk High School. 70258A- Hivemind ranked ninth during the qualification matches with a 5-1 win-loss ratio and ranked ninth in the skills challenge. As the sixth seed, the team moved into the elimination matches of the tournament. It was a successful day as the team was
selected as the recipient of the Innovate Award.

The Innovate Award is one of the special judged awards that specifically recognizes a team that demonstrates a unique or creative mechanism used effectively during competition and other key criteria points of team interviews, written submissions, and each team’s engineering notebook, which documents their design process and decision-making. It is categorized as a qualifying award that allows the winner to advance to state-level competitions.

According to team advisor Robert Link, the team earned the award for its unique double-parking mechanism. In the final 20 seconds of a match, the team’s robot used a clamp-on mechanism to grab a game object and push downward on it, lifting one side of the robot while the other side rested in the parking zone. The success of the double-parking mechanism earns 30 points, which can be a decisive advantage in a match.

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