Southampton Robotics Team Takes 1st Place At Long Island Competition

SOUTHAMPTON, NY — The Southampton High School robotics team, the Marinators, or Team 9646, has made school history.

The team secured a first place title at the FIRST Long Island Regional competition at Hofstra University. With the remarkable achievement, the team is now eligible to compete at the FIRST Robotics World Championships in Texas this April.

"Winning this banner is a huge accomplishment for such a young team," said Assistant Principal Dr. Melissa Mitchell, who pioneered the Southampton robotics team.

The 30-member team earned the top spot by designing, engineering and operating a robot capable of performing multiple complex tasks, including shooting balls into a target, retrieving them from the ground and climbing to hang from a bar.

"They are a very advanced and diverse team," said Mitchell.

Led by team president and lead engineer Sarah Barros, the students dedicated countless hours to building, testing and refining their robot. They worked under the guidance of adviser Eric Pflug, who has a background in engineering.

"He coached them, but they did all the work themselves," said Mitchell.

Mitchell also credited the team’s win to their skilled drive team. Junior driver Colin Heany and operator Anthony Bonilla maneuvered the robot throughout the competition, maintaining a strong defensive strategy while avoiding penalty points, the district said.

The team’s performance was further strengthened through an alliance with robotics teams from Kings Park and Southold high schools, the district said.

Together, the alliance strategically combined their robots’ capabilities to outperform the competition.

According to Mitchell, the victory not only establishes Southampton as a leader in high school robotics but also continues to elevate the program’s impact on students’ futures. Notably, two of the team’s founding members have earned full scholarships to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study engineering.

"The program provides students with real engineering training that they can’t get anywhere else at the high school level," said Mitchell.

The Southampton School District said it congratulated the team and wished them continued success.