robotics

The Patchogue-Medford High School Robotics team recently competed in the Long Island Robotics Competition held at the Suffolk County Community College field house in Brentwood. The competition is sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology), a non-profit organization that encourages students to pursue opportunities in science, technology and engineering.

The competition itself requires each of the competing schools to build a robot which is must perform a specific series of tasks. The robots compete against each other in an autonomous mode and in remote control mode operated by students.

Patchogue-Medford’s team 329 was seeded 3rd out of a field of 38 teams from Long Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The team was awarded the prestigious Leadership in Control Award for an innovative electronic device which was designed by senior Alexander Reben. The award was given for an ingenious device designed to shut down the Robot in auto mode in the event of a crash. Alex was awarded two scholarships through FIRST. Alex received a $40,000 scholarship from Florida Tech and a $32,000 scholarship from Clarkson University. Alex will be attending Florida Tech in the Fall.

Highlights of the competition included the team defeating the defending Long Island and National Champion team two times during the competition. The team won 10 of its 11 matches. During two separate matches allied teams broke down and Patchogue-Medford went on to defeat both sets of opponents by themselves.

The team is continuing its record of success which began two years ago when the it finished 6th in the nation and 7th out of 74 teams at the Nationals last year.