East Harlem Tech Robotics Team Scores Upset
Victory
It’s the stuff movies are made of. Nineteen Black
and Latino students from East Harlem join a new robotics team
created by the East Harlem Tutorial Program in partnership with
Central Park East High School. The students and their mentors labor
tirelessly building a robot they call Jackie that’s capable of
shooting balls into a goal. Four short months later, the team enters
its first regional competition and scores an upset victory over
elite New York City schools in all three award categories: Rookie
All-Star, Highest Rookie Seed, and Regional Winner.
According
to East Harlem Tech’s coordinator, Kristian Breton, Program
Development Specialist for the East Harlem Tutorial Program, on the
first day of the competition, you never would have foreseen this
victory. First of all, when they uncrated Jackie and took her to be
measured and weighed, she came in just under the size limit but was
2.7 pounds over the 120-pound limit.
So, forgoing the morning practice rounds, the
hacksaws and drills came out, and Jackie went on a crash weight loss
program. By the afternoon, she was down to a fighting weight of
119.9 and ready for practice rounds. The team then stayed after the
official session to practice Jackie’s shooting mechanism.
The next morning the team was on a high after
winning its matches and scoring lots of points. But in the
afternoon, one mishap after another hit – the joystick came
unplugged, Jackie’s battery failed, and a chain came off at a most
inopportune time. "In fact, at one point Jackie fell backwards and
my heart said, ‘That might be it for the day,’" Breton recalls.
Sound construction and good luck prevailed,
however, and Jackie was no worse for the wear. The bad news was that
the team had dropped to 24th place and might not qualify
for the next round.
On the third morning, the human players felt a
little down, but they vowed to make the most of the day. Plus, their
teammates cheered them on from the stands so enthusiastically that
their spirit impressed other teams, judges, and everyone within
earshot. What’s more, Jackie came out blazing, and East Harlem Tech
won its morning rounds.
When it came time for teams to pick alliances,
East Harlem Tech was fortunate to be picked by 2TrainRobotics from
Morris High School in the Bronx, which had mentored them from the
beginning, and Robowizards from McKee Vocational Tech High School in
Staten Island. At the alliance’s lunchtime strategy session, they
decided that Jackie would play the role of defensive nuisance to any
team trying to score. With that approach, they made it through the
elimination matches without losing a single match.
And the rest is history. After their astonishing
victory, "The students were overjoyed and I was stunned," Breton
stated. "Every judge, team, and spectator seemed to congratulate us.
Everything went by so quickly. And we were invited to compete in the
National Championship in Atlanta at the end of April."
Little did the team know that this would open the
door to yet another drama – this time regarding team member Amadou
Ly, now 18, who was brought to New York from Senegal when he was 13.
Amadou had kept his undocumented immigration status a secret;
however, the team's unexpected invitation to compete in Atlanta
forced him to reveal that he lacked a government-issued
identification with which to board an airplane. Therefore, while his
teammates flew to Atlanta, Amadou made the 18-hour journey by train.
Thus, one way or another, the team arrived at the robotics
competition, which included over 28,000 high school students on more
than 1,125 teams in 33 regional events.
East Harlem Tech didn’t do as well in Atlanta as
they did at regionals, but they were extremely proud and happy to be
there, getting a glimpse at what the more seasoned teams were up to.
Also, since Amadou’s situation generated a huge amount of media
attention, it was a triumph in itself that the team members managed
to keep their focus on the task at hand. "For some of our students,
it was their first time flying, and, of course, the whole experience
was about much more than robots," Kris Breton stated.
Though Amadou’s story remains unfinished, thanks
to the outpouring of compassion his plight produced, it’s hopeful
that there will be a positive outcome.
East Harlem Tech was sponsors by NASA, Bloomberg
LLC, Garcia & Garcia Hardware, and the unlikely Weichert, Realtors®
- Peters Associates real estate agency. When asked how her company
got involved in sponsoring this fledgling robotics team, Michele
Peters replied, "Because it's a great thing to do. Two of my
agency’s staff members, Office Manager Andrei Magnea and IT Manager
Alex Puiu, were mentors. It was only natural to support their
efforts."
