Red Hawk Robotics Qualifies for New England District Champs!

Team 2713 Red Hawk Robotics from Melrose High School attended the New England District Greater Boston and Pine Tree events this past month and has qualified to attend the District championship in Springfield, MA during the first weekend of April.

Looking to continue their success, the team spent two months constructing a robot from scratch to compete in the 2025 FIRST Robotics Competition season. Their hard work paid off and after their first two competitions, Red Hawk Robotics is currently ranked 26th overall in the New England district and has secured a spot at the playoff competitions.

For their first district event of the season, Red Hawk Robotics attended the Greater Boston Event hosted in Revere, MA. Team 2713 secured third place after qualifying matches, becoming the third seeded captain during alliance selection.  Their alliance was completed with a first pick of Team 78, Air Strike, and a second pick of Team 10254, Regal Seagulls. During the playoffs, the third alliance won their first match with flying colors, a final score of 137 to 82.  The next match they participated in unfortunately sent them down to the lower bracket, allowing them to fight their way through to compete in the semi-finals.  The team ultimately secured third place at the event in a tightly contested semi-final, an overall fantastic performance by our new driver, Miles Chouhan.   

For their second district event, Team 2713 attended the Pine Tree Event hosted in Lewiston, ME.  After an extremely fast paced event (the team averaged less than 20 minutes between qualification matches!), the team ended up seeded in 12th placed and was selected as a first pick by Team 172, Northern Force, on the fifth alliance.The alliance made it to the third round of the double elimination bracket.

In addition to their stellar performance on the competition field, the team received an award at both competitions. At Greater Boston, Red Hawk Robotics received The Innovation in Control Award, awarded to teams with “innovative control systems or application of control components to provide unique machine functions” (FIRST). They accomplished this with their innovation in robot navigation utilizing on board camera systems to automate control of our robot during game play. At Pine Tree, the team won the Gracious Professionalism Award, which in the words of FIRST, “celebrates outstanding demonstration of FIRST Core Values such as continuous Gracious Professionalism, working together both on and off the field of play.” The team’s STEM outreach with local FLL and FTC teams, “making it fun for all” attitude, and sharing of data with other teams exemplified FIRST’s principles of fairness, humility, positivity, and respect.

To recognize students who have shown leadership skills and demonstrated FIRST Core Values, mentors are able to nominate two team members who are high school sophomores or juniors for the FIRST Dean’s List Award, the most prestigious award FRC gives individual students.  This year mentors nominated Sidney Trzepacz and Eva Parenti for Red Hawk Robotics. Eva was chosen for her role as director of finance, raising over $80,000 in corporate sponsorships for Red Hawk Robotics, a record high for the team, and for her contagious team spirit. Sidney was nominated for his creation of SLAMDunk!, software based TagSLAM, which has enhanced automation for the robot. Both team members were interviewed by judges at the Pine Tree Event in Lewiston, ME. Sidney was very honored to be 1 of 2 students chosen as a Dean’s List District Championship Semi-finalists, and will move on to interview for the Dean’s List Finalist award at the New England District Championship Event. Sidney “felt very thankful for everyone on the team for supporting me and my crazy ideas and now I’m here,” he continues, “Shout out to all the software mentors and all the mentors who have helped me out.”  Even though Eva Parenti didn’t win, she was still glad to be nominated, “It was an incredible experience and I really appreciate the nomination. Mentors and peers have said so many kind words about the contributions I have made to the team. I didn’t realize the impact I have made until now.” 

FIRST recognizes that team mentors are essential to a successful FRC team and as such has the Woodie Flowers’ award to honor hard-working, helpful, and overall incredible FRC mentors.  Team captions wrote an essay to nominate mentor Ty Trembly. Ty has been a vital component of Team 2713 since 2021 and has been one of the driving forces behind Red Hawk Robotics qualifying for and attending worlds the past 2 years.  Ty is active in all areas of our team including Manufacturing, Design, and most importantly Software.