The Suffield Public Schools is very proud of the young men and women who participate in the ACES High Robotics team. Most recently they competed in the New England District Championship and qualified for participation in the World Championships in Detroit! Below is a descriptive summary of ACES written by Steve Autieri, our 6-12 Science Curriculum Leader and ACES advisor.
The ACES High Robotics team 176, comprised of students from both Suffield High School and Windsor Locks High School, recently competed and were named Connecticut District Champions in Waterbury, CT on March 9-11, 2018. The team finished the qualification matches ranked seventh out of thirty-two teams from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey competing that weekend. During alliance selection the number one ranked team from Shelton, CT immediately chose ACES High to join with them for the elimination matches along with Team 5129 from Plainville, CT, the “Digital Devils”. After a lunch meeting with the other two teams to discuss strategy, we began the elimination matches. The alliance went a perfect 8-0 in finals matches to walk away with the first district title since 2011.
Aces High was started during the 1994-1995 FIRST season by Dave Leenhouts, an engineer at what was then Hamilton Standard Corporation. Aces High was part of the winning alliance at the National Championship in 1999 and has won numerous awards at regional events since then. Students speak highly of the experiences stemming from participation in the program. Students spend their competition seasons learning the basics of engineering design, use of machinery to manufacture every element of the robot chassis and functional elements, and how to effectively implement a marketing campaign to recruit prospective donors to support our team. Current students and alumni of our program express how the education and experience from the team has enabled them to enter into careers into engineering far ahead of their peers.
The program features student facilitated sub-teams to plan for and execute all elements to support participation in the competition season. Our scouting team in the stands provides valuable intel that allows the team to make informed decisions when it came to alliance selection and match strategies. The marketing team designed and produced the shirts, buttons, banners, and posters using our in-house facilities. Our build team stays to the end of each weekly meeting to ensure that every square inch of the robot was perfectly executed even if it meant staying into the late hours to do so. As one of our current students recently stated demonstrating the impact of the program, “we came as strangers, and left as friends.”