The Ramapo Robotics Club recently had an exceedingly successful competition at NJIT.
Over the past school year, this team has been working collaboratively to create Robots from scratch that would be able to compete in rounds of competition. May 27th 2026, the team joined multiple other robotics teams at NJIT’s Hillier School of Architecture for their final competition of the season. Ramapo was able to walk away, placing first in the Dohyo competition and fourth in the Towers of Hanoi. This was an incredible success for the robotics team and an amazing way to conclude such a successful year thus far.
For those who may not be versed in how high school robotics competitions run, there are two main events, Dohyo Domination and Towers of Hanoi, which both utilize different areas of robotics. Social Media Manager and member of the Robotics club, Kayleigh Hall, a Junior at Ramapo stated, “The two main events…test completely different aspects of robotic design: one requires strength and efficient navigation, while the other demands precision and programming.”
Earlier this year, the Ramapo robotics team had many successful performances in Heavyweight Class competitions. They compete against other high schools nearby in competitions. The teams must focus on problem-solving, engineering, and working together to build the best robots possible for the competition. The robots are put together over the year by the team using metal parts and other useful items.
These competitions, like the one held at NJIT, are what team members wait all year for while building their robots. Understandably the atmosphere likely holds great emotion and pent up excitement. Mr Caufield, an advisor of the Ramapo Robotics team, said, “The environment was a little like a racecar pit crew or a lab at NASA. There was some managed chaos as teams worked to fix or update their robots, practiced driving them around, or just ran around looking for the right screwdriver,” he then continued, “Despite it being a competition, everyone is really friendly and willing to help other teams with advice or spare parts.”
The first part of the competition is Dohyo Domination focuses on the robot’s overall strength and agility. The robot is placed in an arena, also known as the Dohyo, where it must push 12, 2.2 lb objects out of the arena as fast as possible. The team is given 20 points per object pushed, and they are given 90 seconds to attempt to get as many out as they can. Ramapo dominated this event, earning a total of 49 points. This outcome solidified Ramapos’ place as first for this specific event.
Then the second is The Towers of Hanoi challenge is almost entirely strategy-based. The robot is placed next to a table with three square platforms on it. They must use precision to get a stacked cylinder pyramid on the leftmost square platform onto the rightmost platform without stacking a larger cylinder over a smaller cylinder. The team gets six minutes and earns 80 points for every cylinder successfully moved. Ramapo did great and earned fourth place in this event.
Rampage wishes Ramapo’s robotics team the best in all their future endeavors and wishes the seniors the best in their next steps.
