Jericho’s robotics team, Nylock Nuts, won a Design Award at the VEX Robotics Competition, qualifying them for the 2025 Southern New York State Championship.
The team was formed just one year ago and competes in VEX Robotics competitions and championships.
“I got a great bunch of kids,” said the team’s coach, Joe Lin. “Every single one of them has multiple skills that all contribute to the team.”
Lin said he works in the technology industry but had no experience in robotics before his son joined a robotics team in the fourth grade.
“The robotics world was brand new to me when he started,” Lin said.
Lin said some of the program’s students previously competed in VEX competitions at earlier levels, which worked with plastic materials. The Nylock Nuts were formed in May 2023 to compete at a higher level.
“Last year, we knew we were going to this level, which is working with metal,” he said. “So we decided to form a new team.”
The team includes Jericho ninth-graders Rayan Hasan, Milo Lin, Liam Lin, Vihaan Malik and Ian Tam and eighth-grader Felix Xiong.
At this year’s competition, the team won the Design Award, which tracks each team’s progress.
“There are several awards, but one of them is the design,” Lin said,“which is looking at how well they’ve organized their thoughts and how well they follow through on the engineering design process.”
Lin said each team tracks their project’s evolution in an “Engineering Notebook.”
“As they go through the process of building the robot, the kids are supposed to document their entire process,” he said.
Based on these documents, the Nylock Nuts won the Design Award. With the award, the team qualifies for the Southern New York State Championship in March.
“They made it to the state championships last year as well,” Lin said.
“If you win the tournament or you win something like the design award, you can then qualify for the World Championships,” he said.
Lin said at last year’s state championships, the team qualified for the World Championships.
The VEX Southern New York State Championship will be on March 15. If they succeed, the team will qualify for the World Championship in Dallas for the second year in a row.
Lin said the VEX program encourages students to try new things and learn from their mistakes instead of following a coach or leader.
“One of the things I do like about this program is that it’s very kid-centric, meaning the coaches are not supposed to be too hands-on,” Lin said.
Lin said coaches are there to assist students, but they are encouraged to learn from trial and error.
“You guide the kids through learning the concepts and things like that,” Lin said.
“But when it comes to the actual execution of the robots and building it and learning how to build it, the intention is for them to do trial and error,” he said.
Lin said students are encouraged to form relationships with competing teams, present findings and create online content based on their work.
He said these skills are transferable and will help students later in life.
“These are skill sets that are exactly what’s needed to be successful in the work environment,” Lin said.
“It goes far beyond just the technical, STEM stuff,” he said.
