Team 1218In the fall of 2002, Chestnut Hill Academy teachers Peter Randall and Rob Ervin were looking for a way to get students excited about engineering and technology.

That led them to found Team 1218, the academy's award-winning robotics team.

Team 1218 began with four curious students and two willing mentors. The team had very few resources in the beginning, using an empty closet as its shop and a hall as the build space.

Despite the rookie team’s inexperience and limitations, its passion and dedication was the driving force to winning both the 2003 Philadelphia Regional and Rookie All-­Star award.

Gallagher Fluid Seals is a proud sponsor of Team 1218.  The students's achievements with the program and afterwards as alumni are only matched by the dedication of the faculty leaders and mentors.

At the time Team 1218 was founded, CHA had an engineering graduation rate of exactly 0%. The school quickly recognized the importance of a robotics program to the students and the community, and began to fund the team in 2003 in hope that it would encourage more students to become scientists and engineers.

Once the team got underway, the leaders of the program realized Team 1218what they were doing was unlike anything the school had done before. There was a quick spike in interest in science, engineering, technology and mathematics among the student body. STEM-based activities started to be “cool” and the students involved in them became leaders of the school.

As the team grew, so did the school's Engineering and Robotics program. Chestnut Hill started offering more classes for students who were interested in STEM courses. As time went by, Team 1218 picked up more and more sponsors and the team and the educational program that had been created around it had become an ever-more impressive aspect of the school.

The first major milestone for Team 1218 came in 2008, when it secured a permanent home for the team and academic program. The academy had just built a new Science & Technology building and ⅓ of the first floor was dedicated to the team as the new Engineering and Robotics lab.

Team 1218Three years later the school created an Engineering and Robotics Department, headed by team lead mentor Peter Randall. With this new department came a variety of new classes offered to high school students, including CAD/CAM, Intro to Engineering (1, 2 & honors), Mechatronics (based on a course taught at MIT), and Real-­Time Programming.

Team 1218 has been an enthusiastic partner and resource to many area teams.  Its students and mentors have advised new teams on getting started and shared their equipment and lab as well as creative thinking with established teams.  In addition, they have welcomed students from other schools onto our teams and provided countless hours of assistance and technological support to other teams during competitions.

You can find more information on the program and their activities at their website and that of SCH academy.  http://team1218.org/  http://www.sch.org/page