Just weeks after securing a win at their season opener, Lambert High School’s Varsity Robotics team, Team Lambda 9477, celebrated another victory at the Albany Qualifier, held from March 26-28. They secured the Innovation in Control Award, which recognizes the creative use of electrical, mechanical or software-based control systems to enhance a robot’s functionality. Their successes are helping cement Lambert as one of the top schools for robotics in the state.
Though the program only began in 2023, Lambert Robotics has grown immensely. Originally, the team started with just around 10 members, but through consistent outreach, it has expanded into a program of over 60 active students across their Varsity and Junior Varsity teams.
“In the first year, there were not as many people and it was a small community,” Senior Anvi Mundra said. “But we worked super hard…and expanded our team this year so we could have tryouts for our team and see who is experienced enough to join our Varsity team.”
Though this growth has allowed the team to become bigger, it has also allowed them to be more selective. Being a part of the Lambert Varsity Robotics team is a big commitment and takes a lot of dedication and skill.
“We have four to five practices per week,” Mundra explained. “It can get hectic. We had a set of goals to do every week and we had deadlines and if we didn’t hit those deadlines we’d have to work past practice times. We also have practices at multiple practice fields.”
This demanding schedule is key to the team’s success. In a span of just six weeks, the team has to design and then refine one single robot that has to perform many tasks in a competitive environment. In these situations, precision is crucial and can only be achieved from consistent practice and improvements.
This season, the robot is built to collect game pieces using an intake system, then store them internally and launch them into a central scoring hub. The robot’s control system allows these mechanisms to work together seamlessly, which helped Team Lambda 9477 get the highest score.
Their efforts have most certainly paid off, not only at the Albany competition, but also earlier in the month at a competition in Dalton where they placed fourth out of the 31 teams in the region. At that competition, they earned the Creativity Award, while team captain Ava Harris was named a For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Dean’s List Award Semifinalist.
“I feel like we’ve now caught the judges’ eye…so it has definitely given us more motivation,” Outreach Officer Gaargi Sanghavi added. “Seeing what else we can gain with the Creativity Award or all awards we get also helps us get ranking points, which can always help us advance.”
With such strong performances early into their season, Team Lambda 9477 has quickly established itself as a competitive presence that can go toe-to-toe with many longstanding programs. As the season continues, the team hopes to build on this momentum and eventually make it to the FIRST Robotics Worlds competition in Texas.
For a team that began just three years ago, these achievements are just one part of their rapid growth. If their early success is any indication, Team Lambda 9477 is only getting started.
