New York City FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), along with School-Business Partnerships of Long Island, Inc. (SBPLI), presented the FIRST Tech Challenge Qualifying Tournaments on January 18 at Hewlett High School and January 31 at Syosset High School. Forty-nine teams from Long Island, the metropolitan New York area and the island country of Jamaica took part in the daylong competitions.

The FTC is a program through FIRST, which is an organization that focuses on teaching children and young adults STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) skills through stimulating robotics competitions. The FTC tournament requires students in grades seven through twelve to design, build, and program a robot to compete with in an alliance format against other teams. Each year, a different themed challenge is presented to those who participate in the tournament.

The challenge was “CASCADE EFFECT,” in which Alliances of two teams programmed their robots to collect balls and place them in the rolling goals. The number of points for each ball scored in the goal is based on the length of the ball tube and the ball height.

Following the tournaments, an award ceremony was presented by the FIRST judges. Different teams won trophies for various categories that represented a range of qualities, such as teamwork, creativity, and inspiration.

The winners from the January 18 Qualifying Tournament are listed below and are eligible to participate in the NYC/Long Island Regional Championship Event at NYU/Polytechnic School of Engineering in Brooklyn on March 1:

The winners from the January 31 Qualifying Tournament are listed below and will be eligible for the NYC/Long Island Regional Championship Event at NYU/Polytechnic School of Engineering in Brooklyn on March 1:

Sponsors included School-Business Partnerships of Long Island, Inc., Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools, Syosset Central School District, Rockwell Collins, and PTC.