The William Floyd High School Robotics Team 287 recently took part in the FIRST Hudson Valley Regional in Suffern, New York. The team competed with their robot, "Magicarp," a name inspired by advisor Joseph Carpinone and this year's water-themed game.
Team 287, led by advisors Joseph Carpinone, Joseph Brand, Roxanna Casey, and volunteers Christopher Ryon and Jack Fried from Brookhaven National Laboratory, competed against 48 other teams comprising over 1,000 students from various countries.
For the first time in six years, Team 287 became playoff alliance captains. They placed tenth overall out of 49 teams and fifth in the playoff bracket. This event served as preparation for the upcoming Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competition at Hofstra University from March 19-22.
In this year’s challenge titled REEFSCAPE presented by Haas, teams are tasked with designing and building a robot up to 135 pounds using common rules that change annually. The competition involves using STEM skills to build robots for gameplay.
Team members include Max Heitman (driver), Anthony Nacchio (operator), Carlos Hernandez Parias Jr. (scouting specialist), Carmine Nacchio (human player), Alice Chen (media specialist), Hamza Cheema (programming specialist), Christian D’Ambrosio (safety specialist) among others.
William Floyd Robotics has been competing since 1999 and has won several awards such as the Xerox Creativity Award (2001) and the Industrial Design Award sponsored by General Motors (2022).
The Gene Haas Foundation supports organizations like FIRST to expand access to manufacturing technology training programs.