By Madison Russ
A room full of teenagers might typically buzz with chatter, but inside the STEM building at the Police Activities League of Egg Harbor Township and Atlantic County, visitors are met with a focused quiet where the organization’s competitive robotics team is hard at work.
With two robots to refine and a world championship within reach, there’s no time to waste.
The Enforcers, the organization’s FIRST Tech Challenge team, recently claimed the top state ranking and now ranks 72nd worldwide out of 8,000 teams.
If they advance past the next few competitions, they’ll have a shot at the world championship in Houston, where only a little more than 200 teams compete. They’ve qualified six years in a row, placing 15th last year.
As for their odds this year, the team of 16, which ranges from grade seven to high school seniors, is feeling pretty confident.
“We’ve been doing well all year, and I don’t expect that to change,” said 17-year-old Joey McCave.
The nonprofit, which was founded in 1989 by a group of officers aiming to strengthen relationships with local youth, has grown over the past three decades to include a sprawling campus with programs beyond athletics, such as STEM, robotics, and more.
It serves thousands of children annually and is funded through public contributions, sponsorships, donations, registration fees, fundraisers, and profits from its summer camps, though it provides scholarships to children in need.
But if you ask the nonprofit’s executive director and founder, Hector Tavarez, what he knew about engineering before they started this program, his answer is simple: “Nothing.”
“We’ve got some of the brightest kids in the region,” said Tavarez. “It’s always funny because when you have repeated success, it’s like, ‘Okay, well, the coach must be doing this, and the coach must be doing that,’ and I tell people … I’m not an engineer. I’m a retired police officer. I don’t know how to CAD. I don’t know how to program. I don’t know how to 3D print.”
The team is currently busy working on two robots: updating the robot they competed with and recreating and refining a newer version. Both compete in the same game but have different methods of doing it.
“Every year, they come out with a game of sorts,” said 15-year-old Vikram Bansal. “The scoring objectives and the obstacles on the field are all different every year.”
This year, Bansal said the robot is required to pick up small, rectangular prisms and either place them in baskets on the side of the field or bring them to the human player.
“It teaches you a lot of interesting principles, and a lot of it kind of transfers over into the industrial side of things,” explained Bansal. “This is a pick and place game, so you’re trying to pick up an oddly shaped piece and transport it somewhere, kind of similar to how you would do that in maybe like a factory.”
Bansal explained that what differentiates the team from their competition, especially within the state, is their use of 3D printing.
“We can design all our pieces on here and create custom ones, which we can then fabricate using our 3D printers,” said Bansal, noting that they receive support and sometimes advice from alums.
The group also works on various side projects throughout the year, such as creating 3D printed toys for children with disabilities at Shore Medical Center. Some projects involve reverse engineering—notably, they fixed up a donated bomb disposal robot used by the Philadelphia Police Department.
“It was basically a 600-pound paperweight,” said Tavarez. “Not only did they get it to work, it had this big cable that had to connect to it, but they got it to work wirelessly, and they did it in less than two years for under $2,000, and it’s a $120,000 robot.”
Tavarez highlighted their dedication, noting that as competitions approach, some members pop in daily instead of the usual twice-a-week meetings.
Bansal said being involved in the program has given him valuable learning opportunities.
“We have kids who graduate from here, and they’re doing engineering classes in college, and they’ve already learned a lot of the stuff they’re learning there, so it gives them a leg up, and you can get a lot of internships and good connections,” said Bansal, noting he’s even gotten an industry-level certification.
Bansal said that for would-be members interested in joining, their “doors are always open.”
“You can come in and see what we do,” he said. “You can learn a lot of cool things, meet a lot of new people, and if there’s financial issues, we’ll cover you. We’re as accessible as we can be.”
Madison Russ is an award-winning journalist, copy editor and adjunct professor of communication based in Atlantic County. An Ocean City native, Madison is passionate about telling stories that matter to locals, often spotlighting nonprofits and exploring the area’s vibrant arts scene.
