Our Mission
About Us
We are an extremely passionate and diverse team, with members from all over the world and specializing in many different aspects. These, combined with our dedication, makes us an incredibly competitive team.
Our Team Leaders
With over 6 years of mechanical experience, Vincent, 14, is our Lead Mechanical Designer. In addition to having participated in all levels of FIRST and VEX robotics, Vincent has also built robots for the SeaPerch and ROV MATE underwater competitions. His robot designs have won multiple regional and state championships and have qualified his team for the world championship 6 times. Not only does he enjoy doing robotics, but he also spends time helping others; having coached multiple VEX IQ and FLL teams. He is also a counselor for many STEM related programs at numerous locations. Vincent is very excited to continue doing robotics here on VERTEX as the Mechanical Lead.
David is a sophomore from Shanghai, China. Having been enthusiastic about robotics throughout his middle school years, his greatest disappointment at Exeter was that it did not have a large-scaled robotics team that he could learn robotics in. Therefore, David decided to start this FIRST Tech Challenge team with some other students in order to give students on this campus a chance to do robotics. David has been working on Computer Aided Design for one year.
Neil Chowdhury is a ninth grade student at Phillips Exeter Academy. Neil has started robotics in fifth grade with FIRST Lego League, where he led a team of 5 students. In addition, his FTC team from Washington received the Interleague Championship Finalist Alliance award and participated in the state level competition. Neil is thrilled to continue doing Robotics with Team VERTEX and is happy to bring the robot to life with his programming skills.
Penny is an 11th grader at Phillips Exeter Academy, her passion for computer science is shown through her various projects on campus to convenient student life - some working with FTC robots! She has had plenty of experience with robotics through FLL, FTC, ROV MATE, VEX and SeaPerch and is very excited to work on VERTEX as the chief programmer. Penny loves to spread her passion for robotics and STEM - she is a coach of the FLL team at the University of New Hampshire and has taught over 1000 girls around China the basics of JAVA and EV3 programming through her non-profit initiative WeHack2.
Meet the Team
Latest news
Exeter Computing Club
Penny, our programming lead, presented to Exeter Computing Club about the roles of historic racism and sexism in machine learning. Because of the history of racism and sexism in determining candidates for jobs and universities, and decisions made by companies and banks about areas with a larger demographic of minorities, algorithms that then learn from Read more about Exeter Computing Club[…]
FTC Team Meetup!
FTC Team 15534, VERTEX, will be hosting an FTC Team Meetup on April 14th, from 2-5PM at Phillips Exeter Academy. All students in FIRST (any level!) are welcome to attend and learn about Silicon Valley Ethics, while being able to share experiences and bond with other FIRST Teams! Teams can use the following link to Read more about FTC Team Meetup![…]
Girls Who Code – Round 2!
Kai and Summer visited Girls Who Code, again! This time, they presented about Silicon Valley Ethics and how our ethics have evolved, or haven’t evolved, with the evolution of technology. About the presentation, Summer said: “It is the second time that VERTEX has presented there. For the first time, we did a presentation on Neutral Read more about Girls Who Code – Round 2![…]
iRobot
Andrew Deschenes, a volunteer from iRobot, visited us and gave us a presentation about iRobot! He actually participated in FRC in high school, which was incredibly cool – it showed us how being in a robotics team can lead to future career. He showed us some of the robots that iRobot manufactures, and a future Read more about iRobot[…]
Engaging with Xenex’s COO
On January 20th this year, members from our team had a Skype call with the COO of the nearby robotics company Xenex, Mr. Froutin. We asked him about procedures in designing and building robots and team management. Through this experience, we learned many things: It is important to design the robot in part or in Read more about Engaging with Xenex’s COO[…]
PEA STEM Day
As the main organizers of the first ever STEM Day at Phillips Exeter Academy, VERTEX first had this idea when we saw a lack of school emphasis on STEM subjects. There are very few opportunities on campus for STEM students to present their own individual projects and not only so, there are no major events Read more about PEA STEM Day[…]
State Championship!
We were honored to have received the INSPIRE Award at the New Hampshire State Championships! As a rookie team, this came as a surprise, especially because of our time constraint at Exeter. In addition to winning Inspire, we also won the Promote Award(https://vimeo.com/314414344), and were Finalists for the Control, Motivate, Connect, and Think Awards. Our Read more about State Championship![…]
Seacoast Outright
A group that is often left out or excluded in STEM is the LGBTQIA+ community. This issue of marginalization hits home with our team because one of our team members Kai came out as non-binary during the course of this season. As a team having a member who is non-binary has educated on the importance Read more about Seacoast Outright[…]
STEM Day Proposal
Overview After 237 years of history, amidst the eager anticipation of all students, there is finally a day at PEA where students interested in the domains of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math can show off their talents and intelligence — the first PEA STEM Day. The first STEM Day is going to be held on Read more about STEM Day Proposal[…]