BURLINGTON WEATHER

How Burlington Works

Burlington High School's robotics team, the DevilBotz, wrapped up a strong competitive season last weekend, earning a second-place finish at the Massachusetts FRC State Championship on May 30.

The team — officially designated Team 2876 in the FIRST Robotics Competition — spent the winter and spring working through the full arc of the FRC season: a six-week build season that started with a kickoff event in January and was followed by two district qualifier events, a trip to the New England District Championship, and ultimately a run to the finals at MA States.

Archaeology Was the Theme — and Defense Was the Strategy

This year's FRC game, Rebuilt, had an archaeological theme, with field elements drawn from previous seasons repurposed into a new competitive format. Teams had to design robots to score game pieces and navigate a field with a central bump obstacle, all while competing in three-on-three alliances.

From the start of build season in January, the DevilBotz homed in on a clear design. "They quickly settled on a design and worked nonstop to make it happen,” said Barbara Santiano, the team's business mentor. She said there was “a lot of trial and error, a lot of tweaking, and  they stuck with what they wanted to do and found a way to make it work.” 

One notable technical improvement this season, according to Nishtha Prajapati, a junior on the mechanical and electrical team who has been with the DevilBotz since her freshman year: a new approach to routing and connecting CAN bus wiring that dramatically reduced electrical issues during competition.

Once the robot hit the field, driver performance became a defining factor. "We had a good robot, but our driver did amazing defense, and that took us further into the competition," Prajapati said.

District Qualifiers and the Road to Championships

The DevilBotz competed at two district qualifier events — Greater Boston (in Revere) and North Shore (in Reading) — accumulating enough district points across both to advance to the New England District Championship in Springfield from April 15 to 18.

The highlight of the qualifier season came at Revere, where the team was selected to join the first-place alliance — a distinction earned through scouting, not luck. During qualifiers, said Santiano, teams observe every match, tracking which robots climb, which ones shoot quickly, which ones drive well. Alliance captains then use that intelligence to select partners who fill gaps in their own robot's capabilities. Being chosen by the first alliance captain is a mark of genuine competitive value.

"We got selected by the Neutrons — they were the first alliance captains — and that took us all the way to finals," Prajapati said.

At the New England District Championship, the team competed among 100 qualifiers drawn from 200 teams across all six New England states plus New York. They finished the full district season ranked 85th out of 229 teams in the region.

Second Place at MA States

The team's deepest run of the season came at the Massachusetts FRC State Championship this past weekend, a separate event that drew the top 32 Massachusetts teams to Merrimack College on May 30. The DevilBotz advanced all the way to the final match, finishing as the second-place alliance — losing by a narrow margin to the first-place alliance.

Behind the competition results was a team that, by multiple accounts, collaborated well and executed their work smoothly. Santiano credited the student executive board — President Ellery Schwoebel, VP of Engineering Braden Santiano, VP of Strategy Joshua Manoj, and VP of Business Bhavya Patel — with strong project management and accountability throughout the season. "They did a much better job keeping track of tasks and holding people to them," she said.

The pit crew, responsible for diagnosing and repairing the robot between matches under tight time constraints, also stood out, said Prajapati, even though much of the crew consisted of first-year members.”They picked up everything we taught them,” Prajapati said. "At one point we had 15 minutes to fix the robot and our deployer chain broke, but we were able to fix that fast because of how good our pit crew is." 

What's Next for the DevilBotz

The DevilBotz will compete in the BattleCry off-season tournament at Worcester Polytechnic Institute on June 6 and 7.

The team carries a roster of roughly 40 students, with about 23 attending meetings regularly, and is actively looking for adult mentors — particularly those with technical backgrounds in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software, or CAD. Anyone interested in supporting the program can reach the team at info@devilbotz.org.

Prajapati, who has one year left at BHS, said the season reinforced where she wants to go next. "Robotics has inspired me so much — I'm thinking of going into mechanical or electrical engineering in college."

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