During the month of March, The Smithtown Robotics team competed in the FIRST Long Island Regional # 1 at Hofstra University and the Tech Valley Regional in Albany. The team met daily for over 6 weeks working late at night to build their competition robot. This year's theme was Charged UP presented by HAAS and the objective was to create a robot to place cones and cubes in a grid component on the field and have the robot balance on a charging station in under 2 minutes and 30 sec.
The team competed against teams from around the world including teams from Taiwan, Turkey, India, Brazil, Taipei and China. After many tough matches the team made it to the quarter finals at the Long Island Regional. The Mechanical Bulls were one win away from qualifying for the FIRST World Championships in Houston Texas, losing in the semi final match at the Tech Valley Regional in Albany.
More exciting news is that one of their members, Jessica Sucharski, had the opportunity and great honor of singing the national anthem on both days of the Long Island regional # 1! Another member of their team, Nick Singer and his band Mike’s Amp also had the opportunity to perform at this regional and did an amazing job of hyping up the crowd!
During the Long Island Regional, team member Abigail Brennan, won a very prestigious award, The Dean’s List Finalist award which highlights an extraordinary team member who exemplifies the values of the FIRST Organization. With this grand achievement, Abigail will be advancing to compete in the World Championships in Houston,Texas from April 19th - 22nd.
