FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Long Island presented its 2023 Long Island Regional #1 on March 21-22 at Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex in Hempstead. Forty-five teams from Long Island, upstate New York, Brazil and India took part in the three-day FIRST^® Robotics Competition. This event culminated with awards and honors for areas such as design excellence, competitive play, sportsmanship and high-impact partnerships among schools, businesses and communities.

The winner of the 2023 Long Island Regional #1 was the three-team alliance made up of “Ranger Robotics” (Team #3015) from Spencerport (NY) High School, “Hicksville J-Birds” (Team #1468) from Hicksville High School and “CyberHawks” (Team #2875) from Cold Spring Harbor High School. “Pierson Whalers” (Team #28) from Pierson Middle/High School in Sag Harbor took home the coveted FIRST Impact Award, which is the event’s most prestigious award. It recognizes the team that best embodies the goals and purpose of FIRST and that best represents a model for other teams to emulate. “Rebel Robotics” (Team #2638) from Great Neck South High School won the Regional Engineering Inspiration Award. These teams are now eligible to compete at the 2023 FIRST Championship presented by BAE Systems at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas from April 19-22.

Ellen Kressner, Team Mentor, Team #2638 “Rebel Robotics” from Great Neck South High School, was named a Finalist for the Woodie Flowers Award. Winners of the Dean’s List Finalist Award were Shaan Merchant of Team #2638 “Rebel Robotics” from Great Neck South High School and Abigail Brennan of Team #810 “The Mechanical Bulls” of Smithtown High School.

“This was one of the best Long Island Regionals we’ve experienced,” says Bertram Dittmar, Executive Director, FIRST Long Island. “All participating teams demonstrated tremendous teamwork, gracious professionalism^™ and critical thinking. The fun and excitement of the competition was evident as many students and mentors got caught up in the spirit of the event. Participants, volunteers, and sponsors had the opportunity to experience the beauty of engineering and technology combined with the excitement of a competitive event.”

As a FIRST^® Robotics Competition, the 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 CHARGED UP^SM Presented by Haas, in which two alliances are invited to process game pieces to bring energy to their community. The alliances do this by retrieving their game pieces from substations and placing them into the grid. Human players provide the game pieces to the robots from the substations. In the last moments of each match, alliance robots race to dock or engage with their charge station.