Pictured (L-R Jason Martino [front], Ryan Payne, Maysara Elazzazi, Zachary Goldsmith, Michael Betro, Devavrat Nopany, and Alexander Catera).
Pictured are judges visiting the team’s pit.
Mike, Dave and Ryan preparing team members in the Edward Jones Dome preparing for battle.
In a huddle, team members take a moment before their match.
(New Hartford, NY – May 2013) The RoboSpartans competed at the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship April 24 to 26 in the Edward Jones Dome and America’s Center, St. Louis, Mo.
The team returned home as World Champion Finalists in three award categories, the Inspire Award, FIRST Tech Challenge’s top prize, the Think Award for documentation in their engineering notebook and the Connect Award for connecting to the local engineering and FIRST community.
“Recognition as one of the best in the World representing FIRST, was an incredible honor” according to team Coach Bob Payne. “At Worlds, we’re a little fish in the big pond of powerhouse teams. Our guys obviously made an impact on the judges to be considered for so many awards.”
The team came in 35th out of 64 teams in the robot performance for their division after a couple days of connectivity issues with the field control system.
As winners of the regional Inspire Award at Clarkson University, the RoboSpartans were chosen as one of the top 5 percent of this season’s 2,500 teams worldwide to participate in the four-day competition. Teams from Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, India, Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Spain joined U.S. teams for a grueling morning to evening event schedule. Teams gave a 15 minute presentation to judges, completed in 8 robot matches in the Edward Jones Dome and hosted judge’s visits in their 10’ x 10’ trade show booth decorated “pit” area.
RoboSpartan team members attending the World Championship were 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.
RoboSpartans #4082 is a privately funded, basement-based team and after school program that is not affiliated with local school districts. The team meets six to nine hours per week year-round and has logged over 1,600 hours of on-site community outreach for their third competition season. In addition to building a highly competitive robot, they host local FIRST Tech Challenge events, volunteer at FIRST LEGO League events, mentor teams and facilitate summer robotics camps. For more information on the team or FTC events in our area, check out their Facebook page or Google the RoboSpartans website. Coaches can be contacted via nh.robospartans@gmail.com.
Congratulations to these fine young men and their coaches. Thank you for giving them the recognition they deserve.