Watertown High robotics team demonstrates autonomous scoring routine, wins autonomous award

Watertown High School's robotics team demonstrated its 2025 competition robot at the School Committee meeting on May 19 and described an autonomous alignment feature that helped the team win this season's Autonomous Award.

Travis, head coach for the Watertown High School robotics team, introduced the team's senior members and a demonstration of the season's robot, built for FIRST‑style competition. Pax, a senior on the team, described the game pieces ("coral" PVC pieces and a large ball called "algae") and explained how the robot intakes and places coral using a funnel and an elevator‑driven claw. Anna, the team's programming captain and a senior, described machine‑vision work: the robot uses multiple cameras and AprilTag markers on the field to locate scoring positions and perform an "auto align" routine that allows the team to press one button and have the robot line up and score automatically. Coach Travis said the team earned an Autonomous Award for its automated features and credited mentors from local companies for volunteering time with students on programming and engineering.

Why it matters: The demonstration showed practical STEM learning and community partnerships that give students hands‑on experience in programming, mechanical design and systems integration. Committee members commended the students' work and said presentations like this are among their favorite parts of meetings.

Quotes: "Every year, we get a new game, and we have to build a new robot," Pax said during the demonstration. "We have these things on the field that look like QR codes. We call them April tags... it tells our robot where it is on the field, and we use them to be able to score automatically without having to drive." Coach Travis said, "This year, they actually earned the autonomous award ... it's a lot of testing and a lot of complicated software work that they get the experience of, as high school students."

Ending: The committee invited questions but had none; members expressed pride in the program and encouragement for the team's future seasons.