Ossining High School O-bots to Compete in Regional Robotics Competition in Rockland

No one knows exactly how many hours the members of the Ossining High School Engineering Club worked on the team’s entry for this year’s FIRST Robotics Competition, but students estimate the total to be in the hundreds.

The O-bots, also known as Team 4122, spent an intense six weeks brainstorming, conceptualizing and building their robot for the FIRST STEAMWORKS challenge. The competition, which is a field game, involves shooting balls into a “boiler” to build steam pressure, retrieving and delivering gears to “pilots” on the “airships,” and helping their robots climb onto the contraptions to assist the pilots.

The last day OHS’ Team 4122 was allowed to work on its entry was Feb. 21. The 80-pound robot had to be packaged up with zip ties and stored at the school until the Hudson Valley Regional FIRST – For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology -- Robotics Competition, which runs from March 24-26 at Rockland Community College.

“We were all overwhelmed when we first saw the game, but this is the first year that we ended a week before build season officially ended,” said junior Jill McGuckin, an Ossining O-bots member. “It was a fully completed robot. It was working. It was doing well. We’re excited to see it in competition now.”

This is the first year there is a regional competition in the Hudson Valley. Forty-seven teams from the tri-state area, as well as Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Turkey and the United Kingdom, are participating. They are vying for a chance to go to the FIRST Robotics World Championship in St. Louis April 26-29.

“I’m so proud to see how far our team has come since our 2012 rookie year,” said OHS science teacher Douglas Albrecht, who advises the group, along with fellow science teacher Mark Scinta and mentor Ken Ocheltree, an IBM Research engineer who lives in Ossining.

“These kids are our future problem-solvers,” Mr. Albrecht added. “Aside from tremendous hands-on learning and real-life STEM skills implementation, they learn teamwork, persistence and how to cope with setbacks. They overcame so many challenges to get to this point. It’s amazing and inspirational to watch and await the competition.”

Team 4122 has picked up honors every year it has participated in FIRST, including a Rookie All Star award in 2012 and the Engineering Inspiration Award at the world championship in 2013.

At last year's Hofstra competition, the O-bots received the prestigious Judges’ Award for their efforts in educating the community about Ossining robotics, sponsoring programs for middle school students and bringing more engineering and computer science classes to the high school. The team won the Judges Award, Newton Division, in St. Louis. Also in 2016, the O-bots won the Hudson Valley Rally in Yonkers, and then-junior Celine Khoo (now president of the Engineering Club) was a Dean’s List finalist.

The team will be participating in the Hofstra FIRST Competition again this year. It takes place March 31-April 2.

Senior Trey Usher will participate in his final FIRST Competition this year. He credits the Engineering Club with helping him find his college and career path. “The engineering field is very interesting to me and I got into engineering from this club. So did a lot of other seniors,” he said, noting that he, teammate Alex Walsh and several others are going to college for engineering.

In the FIRST STEAMWORKS Challenge, Team 4122 will focus on placing the gears on the airships rather than shooting balls into the boilers because the gears are worth a lot more points. The competitors have a little more than two minutes to do everything they need to do. The O-bots are using Velcro to have the robot climb 5 feet and push a button to complete the challenge.

“We wanted to be able to do two things very reliably as opposed to doing a mediocre job on three things,” Alex said.

While members of the O-bots had some differences of opinion over the best strategies to use, they all came together and worked well as a team.

“We all really support each other. That’s really our main goal,” sophomore Flo De Armas said. “All of us want to see each other succeed. That is why I like doing this. There’s just so much enthusiasm.”

Team 4122 members said they are grateful to their sponsors, which include Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, IBM, Entergy and Otocast, along with the school district.

These are details of the upcoming events:

-- The Hudson Valley Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, which is free and open to the public, takes place March 24-26 in the Eugene Levy Fieldhouse at Rockland Community College, 145 College Road, Suffern. For more information, visit http://www.nycfirst.org/nycfirst-events/hudson-valley-regional. The first day of the event is a college fair.

-- To learn more about the FIRST Robotics Long Island Regional Competition March 31-April 2, visit http://events.hofstra.edu/?eID=17944.

-- Parents, prospective mentors and students interested in getting involved or starting a team to compete in 2018 can contact frcteams@firstinspires.org and visit http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/start-a-team.