(New Hartford, NY – Jan. 2013) The RoboSpartans high school robotics team returned home from the Hudson Valley FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) Championship Tournament at Pace University on Jan. 27 with the Think Award Trophy.
This judged award is given to the team that best reflects the “journey” the team took as they experienced the engineering design process during the build season, as documented in their Engineering Notebook. The team’s Engineering Notebook describes the steps, brainstorms, designs, re-designs, successes, and those ‘interesting moments’ when things didn’t go as planned.
The New Hartford RoboSpartans are Michael Betro and Maysara Elazzazi from New Hartford High School, Ryan Payne, Alex Catera and Dave Nopany from Perry Junior High, Zachary Goldsmith from Frankfort-Schuyler High School and Jason Martino from JFK Middle School in Utica. The team coaches are Bob and Lisa Payne of New Hartford.
As earlier season winners of an Inspire Award at Clarkson University, the RoboSpartans already have an invitation to the FTC World Championship Event, April 24-27, 2013, in the Edward Jones Dome, St. Louis. They will be one of 128 teams chosen to represent this season’s 2,500 FTC teams registered this year from 68 countries.
The RoboSpartans are a privately funded basement based team and will rely on fundraising to support their trip to Missouri. They are asking for public donations to insure the entire team’s participation. The team needs to raise approximately $1,600 per team member by April 1, 2013 in order to attend.
If you would like to make a contribution, contact the team at nh.robospartans@gmail.com or at 315-732-1001.
Donations are tax deductible when made for them through the SUNYIT Foundation, the team’s fiscal agent.