Hofstra University's Arena to watch 46 teams of high school students compete at the SBPLI, Inc. Long Island Regional Robotics competition. The students’ goal was to earn a spot at the FIRST Championship, to be held April 17 through 19 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA.  Teams received honors and recognition that rewarded design excellence, competitive play, sportsmanship and high-impact partnerships between schools, businesses and communities.

"All teams demonstrated tremendous teamwork, professionalism and strategic thinking, but these winners went above and beyond to overcome the challenges of the competition," said Fred Breithut, Founder & Chairman of School-Business Partnerships of Long Island, sponsors of the Long Island Regional FIRST Competition. "The fun and excitement of the competition was evident as many students, professional mentors, school groups and community members caught the spirit and came to cheer on their favorite teams as engineering and technology at work surpassed the excitement of a championship athletic event."

With the hope of winning one of several coveted awards, high school students worked with professional mentors to design and build a robot over a six-week timeframe that solves a problem using a kit of parts and a standard set of rules.  The students gathered to compete with their robots in this year's game, "Overdrive."  "Overdrive" is played by two three-team alliances. The object of "Overdrive" is for the robots to race around a track in a counter-clockwise direction manipulating trackballs to earn points. The points are determined within two scoring periods; Hybrid - where digital signals are sent to the robots by robocoaches in the first 15 seconds of play, and Teleoperated-where the robots are radio controlled by team operators during the next 2 minutes of play.

Winners of the SBPLI, Inc. Regional awards include:

Award
Winner

Regional Chairman's Award* (Highest award of the competition)
Team 329, Patchogue-Medford High School, Medford, NY

Reginal Engineering Inspiration Award (Second highest award of the competition)
Team 1594, Brearley High School & Chapin High School, New York, NY

Regional Winner #1
Team 2487, Sayville High School, West Sayville, NY

Regional Winner #2
Team 2010, Champion High School, Warren, OH

Regional Winner #3
Team 102, Somerville High School, Somerville, NJ

Regional Finalist #1
Team 358, Hauppauge High School, Hauppauge, NY

Regional Finalist #2
Team 533, Lindenhurst Senior High School, Lindenhurst, NY

Regional Finalist #3
Team 1803, Paul D. Schreiber High School, Port Washington, NY

Chrysler Team Spirit Award
Team 287, William Floyd HS, Mastic Beach, NY

Delphi "Driving Tomorrow's Technology" Award
Team 1751, Comsewogue High School, Port Jefferson Station, NY

General Motors Industrial Design Award
Team 271, Bay Shore High School, Bay Shore, NY

Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism
Team 1468, Hicksville High School, Hicksville, NY

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award
Team 102, Somerville High School, Somerville, NJ

Motorola Quality Award
Team 533, Lindenhurst Senior High School, Lindenhurst, NY

Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control Award
Team 375, Staten Island Technical High School, Staten Island, NY

Xerox Creativity Award
Team 870, Southold High School, Southold, NY

Highest Rookie Seed Award
Team 2487, Sayville High School, West Sayville, NY

Imagery Award
Team 522, Mckee Vocational High School, Staten Island, NY

Underwriters Laboratory Industrial Safety Award
Team 2010, Champion High School, Warren, OH

Rookie All Star Award
Team 2638, Great Neck South High School, Great Neck, NY

Rookie Inspiration Award
Team 2487, Sayville High School, West Sayville, NY

Website Award
Team 2487, Sayville High School, West Sayville, NY

Judges Award
Team 570, Glen Cove High School, Glen Cove, NY

Judges Award
Team 1358, The Macarthur High School Generals, Levittown, NY

Musical Theme
Team 358, Hauppauge High School, Hauppauge, NY

Greening Award
Team 871, West Islip High School, West Islip, NY

* The Chairman's Award is the most prestigious award of the event and recognizes the team that embodies the goals and purpose of FIRST and best represents a model for other teams to emulate.

In addition to the awards distributed by FIRST Regional, SPBLI also recognized Michael Lang of theGreat Neck South team of Fred Breithut Regional MVP Award.

The Long Island FIRST Regional Competition is run by the School-Business Partnerships of Long Island (SBPLI).

*** Descriptions of the criteria of each award are available upon request.

**** Photos from the event are available upon request.