First Tech Challenge: High schools battle in robotics competition – The Journal News | LoHud.com

Pace University professor Rick Kline talks about the FIRST Tech Regional Championship at Pace University, Feb. 5, 2017 in Pleasantville. Tania Savayan/lohud

John Jay High School students Elliot Lear, 16, right, Michael Fischetti, 17, and James Lucassen, 15, control the robot they built during the FIRST Tech Regional Championship at Pace University, Feb. 5, 2017 in Pleasantville. (Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)Buy Photo

PLEASANTVILLE - Student Gregory Salguero sounded happySunday afternoon that his robotics team from Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES school was vying for the lead in the Hudson Valley NY FIRST Tech Challenge regional contest.

Salguero, of Mahopac, said his parents work in the engineering field and that he would be interesting in pursuing that field as well someday.

The team from Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES, which is in Yorktown Heights, goes by the moniker Dead Voltage.

One of the Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES coaches, Gerry Markel, said it gets a new group of students ever year. "They've got to be quick learners," he said.

Twenty-eight teams of students participated in the regional event held at Pace University. Each match features four robots; one team's robot teams up with another's, and they face off against another alliance of robots.

For a 30-second period, students must tell robots what to do solely by using coding; during two minutes after that, the teams may use controllers to commands their bots.

John Jay High School students James Lucassen, 15, left, Michael Fischetti, 17, and Elliot Lear, 16, control the robot they built during the FIRST Tech Regional Championship at Pace University, Feb. 5, 2017 in Pleasantville. (Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

Techno Chix Stefanie Gschwind, 14, of Chappaqua, left, Susanna Dummit, 16, of Chappaqua, Tara Venkatadri, 16, of Ardsley, Simran Arneja,14, of Monroe and Sophia Pao, 15, of Chappaqua with the robot they built for the FIRST Tech Regional Championship at Pace University, Feb. 5, 2017 in Pleasantville. The Techno Chix members are from the Girl Scouts Heart of Hudson in Pleasantville.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

Tasks in each match include picking up a ball, which include hurling balls into a kind of basket that is suspended above the robots. Another task has robots seek to touch a beacon, changing its color.

The winner of the regional competition moves on to a competition in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Over at Peekskill High School's team table the Iron Devils student Aldaine Heaven said his becoming part of the team "started by just liking how machines work."

He said he plans to study in college something in the technology area, "programming, most likely."

Heaven said while the team was not vying for the top spots, at least as of mid-afternoon, that's OK. He said it's the fun that counts.

Carlo Vidrini, Peekskill High's coach and a co-coach of Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES, said "the robotics program encompasses so many aspect of engineering," from electrical to software.

In a technological age, the students who participate are getting exposure to the tools and thinking skills they need.

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First Tech Challenge: High schools battle in robotics competition - The Journal News | LoHud.com