This year, 23 Picatinny-sponsored high school robotics teams from area high schools plan to meet for the annual regional For Inspiration of Science and Technology (FIRST) robotics competition at Mount Olive High School in Flanders from March 10-12.
Picatinny created a Facebook and Flickr photo albums from a collection of photos we received after Picatinny requested photos of the various teams in advance of the Mount Olive event. Please follow the link in "Related Links" to see the photo album.
The Facebook album can be found at https://www.facebook.com/PicatinnyArsenal
The Flickr album can be found at https://www.flickr.com/photos/picatinnyarsenal
Each of the 23 teams has a volunteer mentor from Picatinny. Each has also received $1,500 from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and $3,500 from the U.S. Army Research Development and Engineering Center's Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) program office.
"The donation we receive from Picatinny each year is a critical component of our annual budget," wrote Ari Eisner the lead student robotics mentor, or coach, of the Warren Hills High School in his response for the requested photos.
Each robotics team had a six-week build period to deliver a robot that will accomplish the competition's annual objective, which for 2017 is to capture and catapult balls into a target 15-feet high, pick up and carry gears from the front line to the air ship, and at the end of the game, climb a four-foot rope to gain extra points, according to Dabiri.
"This is such a valuable program, in so many ways. Kids learn leadership, accountability, how to work within a team setting, problem solving and so much more," wrote Eisner.
Eisner explained that in a recent presentation to his board of education on the robotics program he highlighted how hundreds of thousands of dollars of scholarship money has been received by Team 219 alumni over the past five years, "scholarships they were eligible for solely due to their participation in our FIRST Robotics team," Eisner wrote.
This Facebook photo album is of the teams that responded to our request for photos -- most will be at the Mount Olive event. The caption lists the school, town, team name, coach and Picatinny mentor but not necessarily the individuals pictured.
Social Sharing