On March 26, School-Business Partnerships of Long Island (SBPLI) kicked off its weeklong Long Island Regional FIRST^® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competitions, which were held March 26-27 and March 29-30 at Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex. Between both events, eighty-five teams from Long Island, the metropolitan New York area, upstate New York, New Jersey, Texas, China, Chinese Taipei, India, Norway and Turkey competed. Both two-day tournaments culminated with awards and honors (noted below) for areas such as design excellence, competitive play, sportsmanship and high-impact partnerships among schools, businesses and communities.

The winner of the 2019 SBPLI Long Island Regional #1 was the three-team alliance made up of the “Rebel Robotics” (Team #2638) from Great Neck South High School; “Hicksville J-Birds” (Team #1468) from Hicksville High School; and the “SO BOTZ” (Team #6911) from Tappan Zee High School in Orangeburg. Following the SBPLI Long Island Regional, “POBots” (Team #353) from Plainview-Old Bethpage/JFK High School in Plainview took home the coveted Chairman’s Award, which is the event’s most prestigious award. It recognizes the team that embodies the goals and purpose of FIRST and that best represents a model for other teams to emulate. These teams are now eligible to compete at the 2019 FIRST^® Championship presented by Qualcomm^® Incorporated, at either the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas from April 17-20 or the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan on April 24-27.

Five other teams set to head to the 2019 FIRST Championship presented by Qualcomm Incorporated this year are 2019 Wild Card Winners “MORT” (Team #11) from Mt. Olive High School in Flanders, New Jersey and “Sultans of Turkiye” (Team #2905) from Darussafaka Educational Institutions in Istanbul, Turkey; Regional Engineering Inspiration Award winners “Longwood Robotics” (Team #564) from Longwood High School in Middle Island; and 2019 Rookie All Star Winners the “FORMOSAN SIKA” (Team #7673), from Heng Yee Catholic High School in New Taipei City, Chinese Taipei.

Meenal Majumder, Team Mentor, Dhirubhai Ambani International School Team #7539 “Elev8” from Mumbai, India, was named a Finalist for the Woodie Flowers Award. Winners of the Dean’s List Finalist Award were Dirgh Shah of Dhirubhai Ambani International School Team #7539 “Elev8” from Mumbai, India and Shreoshi Rahman of Aviation Career and Technical High School Team #1601 “Quantum Samurai” from Long Island City. Ysabella Bachmeier of Bethpage High School Team #2869 “Regal Eagles” of Bethpage was the recipient of the Fred Breithut Award.

“This was one of the best, and certainly the biggest, SBPLI Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competitions we’ve experienced,” says Bertram Dittmar, Executive Director, SBPLI. “All participating teams demonstrated tremendous teamwork, gracious professionalism^™ and critical thinking. The fun and excitement of the competition was evident as many students, professional mentors, school groups and community members got caught up in the spirit of the event. Thousands attended the event as participants, volunteers, sponsors and supporters, to experience the beauty of engineering and technology combined with the excitement of a competitive event.”

Now in its 20th season, the SBPLI Long Island Regional featured teams of high school-aged students from across Long Island, the New York metropolitan area and even around the world competing in a cooperative tournament-style robotics competition. Guided by their mentors, students rely on their skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to compete for honors and recognition that reward design excellence, competitive play and sportsmanship. This high-energy event further emphasizes the importance of high-impact partnerships between students, universities, businesses and communities.

This year’s competition was dubbed DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE^SM Presented by The Boeing Company, in which two three-team alliances attempted to complete a variety of tasks in order to score points and win the round, with the hopes of eventually advancing to eliminations and finals. This year’s competition proved to be more challenging, as human drivers had their visibility limited for the first 15 seconds of a game due to a “sandstorm” as the robots are deployed from their habitat, prepare the rockets and cargo ship with hatch panels and load the cargo pods onto their rockets and cargo ship. The robots were either independently operated or controlled by their human drivers via video from their stations. Once the “sandstorm” clears, the alliances have two minutes and 15 seconds to prepare the rockets and cargo ship with hatch panels, load as many cargo pods as possible and return the robot to its Habitat.

The Full List of Winners of the 2019 SBPLI Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competition Event #1 Awards Include:

* 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.

** These teams are eligible to participate in the 2019 FIRST^® Championship presented by Qualcomm® Incorporated at either the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas on April 17-20 or the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan on April 24-27.

*** Denotes a rookie team.

Please Note: Photos of all Award Winners and Advancing Teams are available upon request.