PRESS RELEASES

2023       
Season Kickoff 2023
Hatboro Horsham 2023 Recap
Season kickoff 2023 article
​Robotics Season Kicks Off for Team 2539 Krypton Cougars.
FIRST Robotics Competition Team 2539 - Krypton Cougars is an official club of both Hershey and Palmyra High School. The team was part of the 2nd place alliance at the 2022 World Championships in Houston. Team 2539 recently finished their off-season by winning all 4 of their competitions. FIRST robotics (www.firstinspires.org) is an organization where students build robots and compete with other teams in their region, district, and world.  On Saturday, January 7, 2023,  the team tuned into the worldwide kick-off of the new season, along with over 3200 other teams. The “kick-off” event revealed this year’s game challenge. Over 35 Hershey and Palmyra high school students took part in this year’s kickoff. These students and mentors spent their day at the robotics build-site in Hershey brainstorming, strategizing, and beginning to design the new robot.   
At this year’s competitions, team members and audiences will experience multiple robots zipping across the field to pick up and place game pieces in scoring zones in order to “complete electrical circuits”. Along with scoring with game pieces, teams can also score bonus points in the first 15 seconds, when robots drive themselves to score points without driver control, and near the end of the match, when robots attempt to climb and balance a “seesaw” before the clock runs out. The team expects scoring will be challenging in this strategy-heavy game, with robots all trying to out-maneuver each other and quickly score game pieces into their respective scoring zones. Click here to learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zpflsYc4PA 
The Krypton Cougars team is divided into sub-teams consisting of Programming, Mechanical, Design/CAD, Electrical, Strategy, Business, and Media, each with its own mentors. These mentors are experienced adults who help run the team, however, the robot is still designed, built, and programmed by the students all in a short span of time. The build season is an intense 8-week period during which the team builds an entirely new robot, specified to the challenges of this year’s game. The team’s first competition will be held March 3-5 in Hatboro-Horsham, PA.
All are welcome to stop by the build site at 30 E Granada Ave, Hershey, and see what these amazing high school students are building for this year’s competition.  Team members are present at the site 6-9pm, Monday-Thursday, and Saturday 10am-2pm throughout the build and competition season. The team is always accepting new members, mentors, and those who are willing to donate.  For more information, visit the Krypton Cougars’ website: https://www.team2539.com/.

Zoe Latham
Media Team
Krypton Cougars
Hatboro-Horsham competition recap
Krypton Cougars, the Hershey/Palmyra FIRST ROBOTICS team took first place at this year’s Districts Qualifiers tournament in Hatboro, PA.

The Krypton Cougars, a high school robotics team composed of students from the Hershey and Palmyra PA region competed at the 2023 FIRST Mid-Atlantic District competition at Hatboro-Horsham High school in Horsham, PA on March 4th and 5th.  The Team competed in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition against other high school teams from PA, New Jersey, and Delaware. Getting off to a slow start in the first match after a robotic arm failure, the team quickly turned itself around to win 10 out of 12 of its qualifier matches, securing its place as the #1 alliance team captain.  As #1 alliance captain, the team wins the privilege of the ‘first pick’ for the 3-robot alliance which subsequently competes against 7 other 3-robot alliances during the Sunday championship series. The Cougar’s alliance dominated the series, winning all of its playoff matches  The first match of the finals round, a best-2-out-of-3 series, was a nail-biter. The Cougar’s alliance suffered its first loss of the Championship series. However, the second match was an absolute game-changer which the team won by a landslide and almost secured the current World record score for this year’s competition! The final score of 163-108 was the third-highest score in the World! The third match of the 2-out-of-3 series started poorly when two game pieces failed to score during the autonomous period of the game, the first 15 seconds during which the robot functions fully on its own with no human intervention. The Cougar’s alliance quickly made up the lost points and dominated with a 153-142 score. The win not only gave Krypton Cougars its first-ever Blue Banner as an alliance captain during an in-season event, but the team’s performance also ranked them with the 15th highest OPR (Offensive Power Ranking) out of the approximately 1000 currently ranked teams around the world! The team finished the weekend with a combined record of 15-3 plus the Excellence in Engineering award for its aesthetically pleasing well-designed robot. The Krypton Cougars also gained enough ranking points to get a guaranteed spot in the 60 Team District Championship at Lehigh University on April 6-8. FRC Team 2539 will continue to improve their robot at their Buildsite at 30 E Granada Ave Hershey, PA to prepare for their next competition in Springside-Chestnut Hill on March 17-19. 

​