At New England Innovation Academy (NEIA), the robotics program has quickly become a powerhouse, thanks to the dedication and leadership of the team along with Anna Schonwald, a Science Teacher and Robotics Mentor here at NEIA. As the mentor of Robotics Team 9644, she has guided students through hands-on engineering challenges, teaching them not just how to build robots, but how to problem-solve, collaborate, and compete at a high level.
Schonwald has been instrumental in launching and shaping NEIA’s robotics team, which has made remarkable progress in just its second year. “This is our second year as a team, and we have been doing really, really well this season,” she said. “We have outperformed all expectations, especially considering where we started.”
In their inaugural season, the team’s performance stunned even veteran competitors. “We were a rookie team last year, and we still managed to qualify for the New England Championships, which is not something that every rookie team gets to do.” Their success earned them the Rookie All-Star Award, recognizing their potential and commitment.
This year, the team has pushed even further, with their first competition of the season yielding a fifth-place finish, making them the captain of the third-seed alliance. “We qualified fifth out of forty teams, and we were the alliance captain of the third-seed alliance, which meant we got to pick our own partners for the playoff rounds.” This was a huge accomplishment, as NEIA’s team was competing against well-established programs with years of experience. “We were hanging out with some of the best teams in New England, teams that are just really, really good, year in and year out,” Schonwald explained.
One of the keys to the team’s success is their focus on perfecting their design rather than overcomplicating it. “Our robot does one thing, and it does that one thing really, really well,” she said. “We were so good at doing that one thing that we were able to outcompete other teams.”
Looking ahead, the team is preparing for their next major challenge: the competition at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) on March 22-23. If they perform well, they could qualify for the New England Championships, a stepping stone to the World Championships in Houston, Texas. While some teams have extensive resources and large mentorship programs, NEIA’s team has relied on passion, determination, and creativity.
Schonwald is also thinking about the long-term future of NEIA’s robotics program. “One of my biggest goals as a mentor is making sure that our team has a really strong culture and that the legacy of the team continues beyond the founding students.” She wants to ensure that the program remains stable, even as the 12th graders who essentially founded the team graduate. “We are doing a lot of outreach, making sure that our younger members are getting engaged and preparing to take on leadership roles.”
More than anything, she hopes to inspire students who may have never considered robotics before. “This team is about learning engineering, coding, and problem-solving in the real world,” she emphasized. “Anyone can join, even if they don’t have experience, and they’ll learn a lot because it’s all hands-on.”
With her leadership and the commitment to the students and the team, NEIA’s Robotics Team 9644 is proving that with innovation, teamwork, and perseverance, anything is possible.
