Kids these days are still playing with robots, but they’ve come a long way since the rock-’em-sock-’em era of the Red Rocker and the Blue Bomber.
The competition nowadays is smarter and more complex; the ring an actual playing field, filled with obstacles to overcome and tasks to complete. The stakes are higher as teams of students from around the world face off against each other. And, after a two-year hiatus brought on by the pandemic, South Fork robotics teams eagerly rose to the challenge this month.
The Pierson Middle and High School team, with one of the longest-running programs in the history of robotics competitions on Long Island, reached the quarterfinals of the FIRST — For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology — Robotics regional contest, held at Hofstra University from March 21 to 23. Team 28, as the Pierson students are known, was consistently ranked between 10th and 13th among the 39 teams taking part. This contest was preceded by one in Albany, which Team 28 used as a warmup experience to tune up their bot for Hofstra.
Chloe Lucyk, a Pierson junior who was the alliance captain at Hofstra, and who wrote 17 essays on various aspects to apply for various FIRST awards and grants, said the experience was fraught with technical problems, “but our team came together quickly and really put our minds together to solve the issues.”
“I think our team did amazing during the competition, considering all of our obstacles,” she added. “Despite a bunch of things going wrong with our robot, we really made it far. We could not have done as well as we did without the teamwork and tight-knit family that we’ve created.”
Each January, FIRST Robotics releases the theme of the upcoming competition, as well as specifications, to which the teams must adhere. This year’s theme was “rapid react,” focusing on transportation and supply chains. One of the tasks for each robot was to climb a monkey-bar-like apparatus.
Tyler Mitchell, a Pierson junior and five-year team member whose love of robotics was inspired long ago by the movie “Big Hero 6,” described the competition as “intense and stressful.”
“Teams are stationed in pits, and are constantly fighting against the clock to make repairs and get their bots on the field,” he explained. “Our team members knew what they had to do, and what they shouldn’t do in certain situations, because we know each other, be it maybe even staying out of the way of someone doing an important job or handing a tool to someone that needs it before they even think of it themselves.”
The two-year hiatus was beneficial in a way, he said. “We were able to wipe the slate clean and experiment with different forms of communication, cooperation, and engineering.”
Sue McCarthy, a Pierson teacher who advises the club along with Tom Ruhl and Brandon Buscemi, said the team’s strength is its diverse set of skills. “There is so much more involved than just the build,” she said, citing fund-raising, social media promotion, grant writing, and more. “That’s where the organization skills and such come into play.”
Through the competition, Pierson earned a $6,000 grant from the Gene Haas Foundation, part of which will go toward scholarships for the participants.
The Bridgehampton School’s robotics club, Team 5659, which is in its seventh year of competition, was ranked as high as 11th and as low as 36th at the same Hofstra regional. They finished ranked 16th.
Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz, a technology teacher who advises the team along with a colleague, Ken Giosi, said it was initially questionable that there would even be enough kids to field a team because most of the veteran builders had graduated, and “it looked a little intimidating” to newcomers. Ayanna El, a senior who drove the robot, and Hugo Kapon, a junior who focused on coding and fabrication, were the only returning team members.
“It was a little rocky, and then all of a sudden, we hit our stride come February. It felt really great to be back. . . . We were so solid,” Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz said.
In addition to Ayanna and Hugo, two new recruits, Jonah Posner, a junior who helped operate the robot, and Jose Rojas, a freshman who helped build it, emerged as team leaders. Jonathan Fletcher, a professional metalworker who volunteered as a mentor, also was key in the team’s success.
On the second day of competition, Jonah felt a rush of adrenaline. “It was really fun. It was very tiring,” he said.
One of Ayanna’s favorites is using heavy-duty power tools in building the robot. She also likes the team’s inclusivity.
“It’s empowering. I talk about that all the time,” she said. “It’s always awesome to be able to know different things and learn new skills . . . and as a woman, it’s an awesome opportunity.”
East Hampton High School offers robotics as both a class and a club, but hasn’t competed in many years. That could change, though. Urban Reininger, who teaches the class and the club, called it “a building year.”
“We have a great core of about five freshmen that are all committed to the club and are actively taking coding classes,” he said. “Instead of competing, this year the club has set out to develop their coding/building skills and begin work on making an ‘astromech droid’ or two, like R2-D2. We are hoping this will be fun to work on and draw interest in the club from a broader range of students.”
Robotics isn’t just for high schoolers. The Springs School fields two junior teams, the Thunderbots and the Lightning Bots, who demonstrated at a recent school board meeting that they are surely destined for greatness at East Hampton High School.
The experience of robotics, the students and teachers agree, is invaluable in building interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers as well as teamwork, respect, and camaraderie.
“The whole point is to advance STEM and get students to brainstorm, to build a better future with technology,” said Jonah from Bridgehampton. “It’s really interesting learning about all these cool, crazy, technological things. You look at the robot and it’s so overwhelming, but it doesn’t take much time to learn about how it’s all connected.”