Egg Harbor Township Committee honors PAL robotics team

Members of the EHTPAL robotics team appeared before the five-member Township Committee to receive a proclamation during its regular meeting Wednesday.

“I think they are fabulous. I’ve had the privilege of seeing you all work together. I watched you collaborate. I watched you fix issues that came up,” Mayor Laura Pfrommer told the robotics team members. “I have seen you work at solutions, and I just find it to be amazing.”

The First Tech Challenge is a worldwide robotics competition with more than 7,000 teams made up of students from seventh through 12th grade. Each season, a new game challenge requiring engineering innovations is revealed.

The Enforcers are a top New Jersey team of the 200 in the state, qualifying for world championships eight times in 11 years.

The 11 students who were honored were Vikram Bonsal, Stefan Dragos, Joseph Heng, Joey McCabe, Josh Pack, Ethan Pati, Mithun Roy, Maxwell Tillou and Dalton Wokock. Quang Le and Roney Nguyen also were celebrated as team members, but they did not attend the meeting.

When some teams do well repeatedly over the years, there is a suspicion that adults are involved too much, but mentor Steve Wynee is the only engineer among the adults, coach Hector Tavarez, executive director and founder of EHTPAL, told the Township Committee.

James Barry Care. Jr. and Liz Gloway, a Viking Yacht Company employee and a Vineland third-grade teacher, respectively, are the other mentors, Tavarez said.

“None of us (the adults) know how to program this robot,” Tavarez said. “None of us know how to 3D print.”

The Enforcers finished second in the world last year, Tavarez said.

“We came back this year with three eighth graders and one 10th grader, and eight seniors graduated, so this was supposed to be our rebuilding year,” Tavarez said. “Something happened, and they just put it together. They started clicking as a team.”

The good news is the team is only losing three seniors this year, Tavarez said.

“These kids will give you a smile when you think about the future,” Tavarez said. “Many of these kids will become engineers. Some of them are going into the business world, the nursing world. … They are definitely some of the brightest kids, and they are learning how to be leaders in the program, which is really the main point.”

In other news, the committee: 

• Authorized the issuance of a cannabis license to Brute’s Roots LLC through May 31, 2025.
• Approved the issuance of a cannabis license to Acreage CCF New Jersey LLC through May 31, 2025.
• Passed a resolution of local support for Dhillon Flower Farms LLC for the issuance of a Class I cannabis cultivation facility at 2605 Fire Road.
• Passed a resolution calling for the modernization of the New Jersey Open Public Records Act.
• Certified to the state Local Finance Board that the governing body has reviewed the 2023 annual audit recommendations.