Great Neck South High School’s Robotics Team, “Rebels,” completed a stellar year, winning top awards at FIRST international and regional competitions, and achieving their team goal of winning the top safety award at each event.
At the International Championship Event in St. Louis, Mo, the team copped the Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award, and Team Safety captain Haley Strongin was voted “Safety Star of the Day.” They competed against over 10,000 students from the top 400 teams worldwide, coming from over 10 countries.
The Team also won the UL Industrial Safety Award at the Chesapeake Regional, held in Baltimore, Md., and at the SBPLI (School to Business Partnership of Long Island) Long Island Regional. At the Chesapeake event, the team earned the Competition Winning Alliance Award; at the LI event, they were named the Competition Alliance Semifinalist.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competitions are the inspiration of founder Dean Kamen, entrepreneur and inventor of the Segway two-wheeled transport device.
South Robotics Team members include: Jae Hyeon (David) An, Spencer Beck, William Chen, Benjamin Chernov, Yuvraj Chopra, Matthew Doyley, David Dressner, David Erlich, Steven Farkas, Kevin Flores, Erik Fu, Max Gal, Denson George, Mark Jason, Brian Kao, Jenna Karlin, Sean Kim, Brett Kolodny, Adam Krieger, Jeremy Lesser, Timothy Luk, Allyson Mittler, Jonah Mittler, Ryan Moser, Ryan Motchkavitz, Jonathan Perlman, Jonathan Shapero, Haley Strongin, Samuel Tokar, James Wolf, Kelvin Woo, and Daniel Zaretsky.
Team advisor/South High business/technology department head John Motchkavitz described the preparation leading up to the International competition: “Six weeks prior to the event, students worked to build a robot, from scratch, that would need to successfully complete specific tasks at the competition. This year’s project was a Frisbee-based game. Students worked in their robotics classes and after-school in the Robotics Club. Working on the robot, students also focused on the safety aspects of the program. They were trained in proper workplace safety procedures, ranging from hazardous-materials spills to being certified in CPR, AED, and First Aid. Our team motto is, ‘Safety Drives Productivity.’ If a safe culture is in place, all else will have a great groundwork for success.” Other Robotics Team mentors include: technology teacher Matthew Corrigan and volunteers George Motchkavitz and Valerie Suttenberg.
