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in
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on the cover

Technion
Bound

Frankel robotics team represents
U.S. in Israel at international
competition.

ARI SAMUEL SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
PHOTOS BY BRYAN GOTTLIEB/FRANKEL JEWISH ACADEMY

TOP: Team FJA: Sam Gawel, Sarah Phillips, physics
teacher Eric Rapp, Science Department Chair and
Robotics faculty adviser Nicholas Mantas, Jonah
Weinbaum, Josh State and Elisha Cooper.

A

recent morning visit to
Frankel Jewish Academy found
normally bustling hallways
uncharacteristically calm, with an
occasional teacher sighting replacing
the rumpus of students traversing the
terrain. Parent-teacher conferences
were the cause.
Yet, despite being cloistered in a
science lab, the sounds of tinkering
— interlaced with an occasional har-
rumph from frustration — indicated
not every student chose to sleep late
that day.
Sitting at a lab table staring befud-
dled at the immobile robotic car in
front of him was Jonah Weinbaum,
a junior from Bloomfield Hills, who
offered a brief assessment on why the
machine was ignoring its master.
“It’s being stubborn,” he explained.
“It’s been, (pause), difficult.”
Pleasantries exchanged, Weinbaum
turned back to his laptop and the task
of making a collection of gears, wires
and circuits move. The quick conver-
sation underscored the urgency he
and his cohorts — three other juniors
and a sophomore — were feeling in
advance of an upcoming robotics con-
test the school entered. Nearly four
months of planning and coding were
quickly ceding to the time for applying
spit shine.
The tournament, called the
RoboTraffic Competition, takes place

the day this article lands in mailboxes,
March 22, and is held annually at the
Israel Institute of Technology — com-
monly referred to as the Technion —
in Haifa, Israel.
RoboTraffic began as a small event
in 2009 involving just five Israeli
schools. Sponsored, in part, by World
ORT Kadima Mada, the original goal
was to test road safety through the
building and racing of small robotic
cars navigating simulated street con-
ditions.
Since then, RoboTraffic has
morphed into a global spectacle, with
nearly 20,000 students across three
continents and several countries
meeting on the 327-acre Technion
campus competing in multiple cat-
egories.
As the weeks have whittled to days,
the ticking clock seemingly picks up
speed.
Weinbaum, along with juniors Sam
Gawel, Sarah Phillips and Josh State,
divvied up responsibilities to maxi-
mize the group’s efficiency. Their fifth
teammate, sophomore Elisha Cooper,
was a proverbial 11th-hour substitu-
tion and joined the team only after
another upperclassman dropped out
last December. Given robotic pro-
gramming’s complicated nature, the
compressed timeframe was hardly
helpful.
FJA, which is the sole team rep-

continued on page 14

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March 22 • 2018

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