Jaffrey Historical Society President Peter Lambert drives the Hot Wings team robot, “Trilobite.” ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript 
Jaffrey Historical Society President Peter Lambert drives the Hot Wings team robot, “Trilobite” with help from team member Aidan Maher. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript 
Autumn Stone and Dylan Charles operate their team’s robot in a demonstration at the Jaffrey Civic Center on Thursday. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript 
Autumn Stone and Dylan Charles operate their team’s robot, as fellow teammate Kimi Leone looks on in a demonstration at the Jaffrey Civic Center on Thursday. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript 
Team Hot Wings demonstrates the launching capability of their robot. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript 
Dylan Charles explains how his team earns points by launching various colored balls in specific order into a goal. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript 
Dylan Charles sets up “Trilobite” for a demonstration. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript 
Dallas Charles and Aidan Maher explain various parts of the robot they built with their team. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript 
Sasha Delgao, Dallas Charles and Aidan Maher explain the various parts of the robot they built. ASHLEY SAARI / Ledger-Transcript
Team Hot Wings, a local FIRST Robotics team representing Jaffrey and Rindge, is honing its skills and preparing for its second qualifying match of the season on Saturday.
The Hot Wings team showed off their robot and talked about the FIRST Robotics program in front of one of their sponsors, the Jaffrey Historical Society, during the society’s meeting on Thursday. The group presented a short video on the program, answered questions about their robot, demonstrated it, and gave Historical Society President Peter Lambert a turn at the controls.
“The Historical Society isn’t just about people in Jaffrey’s history, it’s about people in Jaffrey making history,” said Lambert. “I think that’s what they’re doing.”
The group explained the goal of their robot and the competition they’re competing in this year. The group built a robot, named “Trilobite” after the extinct arthropod, designed to launch balls into the air and into a raised goal. Points are earned by getting balls into the goal, but extra points can be earned if they do so in specific color orders.
They must program the robot to run autonomously for the first 30 seconds of the game, after which, they can “drive” the robot.
Team member Kimi Leone said it’s not just about technical skills.
“It’s much more than that. It’s about graceful professionalism,” said Leone. She said one of the goals of the program is building each other up — not only yourself, but your teammates, and even your opponents. One of the aspects of the game is that teams from different schools — with members who may never have met before — will sometimes be part of the same alliance, working together to beat other teams.
The team is mid-season, currently, having participated in one match to try to qualify for the state competition on Dec. 20, where the team placed ninth out of 20 teams. They also received the Reach Award, which is given to teams that serve as good ambassadors for the program.
Team member Autumn Stone explained that the team has done a lot of outreach, both in their community and to other teams. They presented their robot at the Jaffrey Public Library to a group of mostly younger children and got so much enthusiasm that the library had demand for a Lego robotics group. They have shared their practice space with a 4-H robotics team from Peterborough that didn’t have a practice field to test their robot, and they’ve made presentations about the club at the local middle and high school.
“We are inspiring younger kids to get involved,” said Stone.
The group has a second qualifier scheduled for Saturday in Merrimack. Based on the results of the two qualifiers, the top finishers will qualify for the state competition in Concord.