US First Robotics Competition Results
Saunders High School Team Wins Berth to National Competition

Previous Coverage Student Websites Please take a look at the Roosevelt and Saunders team websites. They are wonderful chronicles of the entire Robotics experience, and demonstrate the students "dedication and commitment to the FIRST ideals of gracious professionalism." Be sure to look at the pictures. They're great! Roosevelt High School YAMETS631 Team 2524 Saunders High School Droid Factory Team 2344 About the Teams     Watch the NASA Produced US FIRST Robotics Animation Thank You Dr. & Mrs. Economos A standing ovation from the audience at the January Board of Education Meeting greeted these gracious and generous benefactors of the Roosevelt High School & Saunders High School US FIRST Robotic Competition teams. FIRST Robotics Competition NASA Robotics Alliance Dean's Homework Forum Dean Kamen, the founder of US First, has a forum for ideas to spread the good word about the competition program.

Entrepreneurial spirit, extreme practice, and high speed pit stops provided the winning combination for the Saunders Droid Factory Team 2344, the Rookie All-Stars of the US FIRST Robotics New York regional competition held at the Javits Center in Manhattan.  The team’s success earned the students a bid to the national championship in Atlanta April 17-19.

The Saunders Trades and Technical High School team also earned the Highest Rookie Seed Award for achieving the highest score of any rookie team at the conclusion of the qualifying rounds. The students already won the Rookie Inspiration Award at the Connecticut Regional Competition, a tune-up for the NYC contest. Firooz Mirbaha, one of the Con Ed electrical engineers who gave so much time, expertise and support to the students, was honored with the Volunteer of the Year Award by the US FIRST organization.

YAMETS631 Team 2524 from Roosevelt High School placed in the top 50 in the school's first year of competition -- an extraordinary accomplishment for an extraordinary group of young people. While the team’s participation ended at the NYC regional, the experience inspired the students to a deeper appreciation of science, engineering, and technology.

The US FIRST competition not only challenges students to build and race a robot, it challenges their entrepreneurial spirit.  The students must structure a plan that addresses the technical and practical steps needed to participate successfully in the competition.  The students address recruitment of team members, mentors and technical advisors; donations, marketing, packing, shipping, funding; and, eating.  The latter assumes great importance to the always hungry teens as they work long hours in the six short weeks allocated to transforming a kit of parts into a fully functioning robot. The Saunders entrepreneurial spirit earned them the Rookie Inspiration Award at the Connecticut Regional competition, celebrating the team's outstanding effort in community outreach and recruiting students to engineering.

The participation of the the Roosevelt and Saunders teams is thanks in large part to the generosity of the Andrew and Judith Economos Foundation, which provided $40,000 to help underwrite the costs.

Technical assistance, parts, and support in manufacturing were only part of what Con Edison provided to both schools.  Jose Nunes, Saunders teacher/coach, emphasized that it was the daily mentoring by Con Edison personnel, at the schools and in their shops, which was so important to the students.

The mission of the robotics teams was to transform an identical jumble of motors, batteries, automation components and a control system into a fully-functioning robot that can race around a 27x 54 foot carpeted track, knocking down and moving 40 inch inflated trackballs, passing them over or under a 6 foot 6 inch overpass, then returning them to their original position in 2 minutes and 15 seconds. In the pit between heats, students modified and tune their robots to max out performance and time.