On Saturday, November 17, high school robotics teams met at Half Hollow Hills High School West for a postseason robotics competition, sponsored by School-Business Partnerships of Long Island, Inc. (SBPLI).

The competition was designed to showcase the benefits of robotics programs on students, schools and their communities. Residents, teachers and administrators from the Half Hollow Hills School District and other Long Island school districts showed their support for SBPLI and the robotics competition by attending the event.

Twenty-two teams competed in this event: Bay Shore, Brentwood, Central Islip, Center Moriches, Cold Spring Harbor, Comsewogue, Connetquot, Great Neck South, Hauppauge, Half Hollow Hills, Island Trees, Lindenhurst, Long Island City, Malverne, Miller Place, North Shore, Patchogue-Medford, Plainview-Old Bethpage, Port Washington, Sachem North, Seaford and Smithtown, with Center Moriches and Seaford participating as pre-rookie teams. Many of these teams will be among the 50 teams participating at the Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competition at Hofstra University on April 4-6, 2013.

The finalists of the competition were Team #3460, “Brentwood Robotics” from Brentwood, Team #2875, “Cyberhawks” from Cold Spring Harbor and Team #329, “Raiders” from Patchogue-Medford. The winners were Team #514, “Miller Place Robotics” from Miller Place, Team #263 “Aftershock” from Sachem North and Team #358, “Robotic Eagles” from Hauppauge.

“The competition is not just about the design and building of sophisticated robots. These students also develop maturity, professionalism, teamwork and mentoring skills that enrich their lives,” said Ginny Greco, FRC Director, SBPLI. “Many of our students develop an affinity for their science and math courses, and go on to study engineering, technology or science in college.”

Participating teams used the robots they built for the 2012 Long Island Regional FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition, which was held at Hofstra University in March. During the competition, students had their robots, some weighing as much as 120 pounds, compete on a 27-by-54-foot playing field with bridges, attempting to earn points by scoring as many basketballs into the hoops as possible.

For more information, visit www.sbpli.org.