FIRST® Long Island Announces Award Winners from the 2022 SBPLI Long Island Regional #1

The winning alliance

The winning alliance of (left to right) Team #3171 “HURRICANES” from Westhampton Beach High School, Team #870 “Team R.I.C.E.” from Southold Jr. Sr. High School and Team #2872 “CyberCats” from The Wheatley School display their championship banners during the 2022 SBPLI Long Island Regional #1. The FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition event was held on March 21-23 at Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex in Hempstead.

School-Business Partnerships of Long Island (SBPLI), Inc. DBA FIRST® (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Long Island presented its 2022 SBPLI Long Island Regional #1 on March 21-23 at Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex in Hempstead. Thirty-nine teams from Long Island, upstate New York, Brazil and India took part in the three-day FIRST Robotics Competition. This event culminated with awards and honors for areas such as design excellence, competitive play, sportsmanship and high-impact partnerships among schools, businesses and communities.
 
The winner of the 2022 SBPLI Long Island Regional #1 was the three-team alliance made up of “Team R.I.C.E” (Team #870) from Southold High School, “HURRICANES” (Team #3171) from Westhampton Beach High School and “CyberCats” (Team #2872) from The Wheatley School in Old Westbury. “Rebel Robotics” (Team #2638) from Great Neck South High School took home the coveted Chairman’s Award, which is the event’s most prestigious award. It recognizes the team that best embodies the goals and purpose of FIRST and that best represents a model for other teams to emulate. “R Factor” (Team #6024) from Mumbai, India won the Regional Engineering Inspiration Award. These teams are now eligible to compete at the 2022 FIRST Championship at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas from April 20-23.
 
Samuel Kruse, Team Mentor, Team #5736 “Kingsmen Robotics” from Kings Park High School, was named a Finalist for the Woodie Flowers Award. Winners of the Dean’s List Finalist Award were Stuti Bhatia of Team #6024 “R Factor” from Mumbai, India and Ashley Snyder of Team #527 “Red Dragons” from Plainedge High School in Massapequa.
 
“This was one of the best SBPLI Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competitions we’ve experienced,” says Bertram Dittmar, Executive Director, SBPLI. “All participating teams demonstrated tremendous teamwork, gracious professionalism™ and critical thinking. The fun and excitement of the competition was evident as many students and mentors got caught up in the spirit of the event. Participants, volunteers, and sponsors had the opportunity to experience the beauty of engineering and technology combined with the excitement of a competitive event.”
 
As a FIRST® Robotics Competition, the SBPLI Long Island Regional featured teams of high school-aged students from across Long Island, the New York metropolitan area and even around the world competing in a cooperative tournament-style robotics competition. Guided by their mentors, students rely on their skills in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to compete for honors and recognition that reward design excellence, competitive play and sportsmanship. This high-energy event further emphasizes the importance of high-impact partnerships between students, universities, businesses, and communities.
 
This year’s competition was dubbed RAPID REACTSM presented by The Boeing Company. In RAPID REACT, two competing alliances are invited to process cargo for transportation. Each alliance is assigned a cargo color to process by retrieving their assigned cargo and scoring it into the hub. Human players assist the cargo retrieval and scoring efforts from within their terminals. In the final moments of each match, alliance robots race to engage with their hangar to prepare for transport.
 
The Full List of Winners of the 2022 SBPLI Long Island Regional #1 Awards Include:

AWARD

TEAM #

TEAM NAME

SCHOOL/TOWN

Imagery Award in honor of

Jack Kamen

5016

Huntington Robotics

Huntington High School/Huntington

Rockwell Automation Innovation in Control Award

2872

CyberCats

The Wheatley School/Old Westbury

Xerox Creativity Award

3171

HURRICANES

Westhampton Beach High School/Westhampton Beach

Delphi Excellence in Engineering Award

1468

Hicksville J-Birds

Hicksville High School/Hicksville

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award

7567

SESI SENAI SÃO PAULO OCTOPUS

Centro Educacional SESI 296/Bauru, São Paulo, Brazil

General Motors Industrial Design Award

358

Robotic Eagles

Hauppauge High School/

Hauppauge

Ford Autonomous Award

870

TEAM R.I.C.E.

Southold Jr. Sr. High School/

Southold

Motorola Solutions Foundation Quality Award

2487

Mechanical Animals

Sayville High School/Sayville

Johnson & Johnson Gracious Professionalism

2027

Robotic Dragons

Westbury High School/Westbury

FCA Foundation

Team Spirit Award

6423

Ward Melville Iron Patriots

Ward Melville Sr. High School/

East Setauket

Judges’ Award

2869

Regal Eagles

Bethpage High School/Bethpage

Regional Finalist #1

2638

Rebel Robotics

Great Neck South High School/

Great Neck

Regional Finalist #2

1468

Hicksville J-Birds

Hicksville High School/Hicksville

Regional Finalist #3

6911

SO BOTZ

Tappan Zee High School/

Orangeburg, NY

Regional Finalist #4

8267

Riptide Robotics

Long Beach High School/

Long Beach

Regional Winner #1**

870

TEAM R.I.C.E.

Southold Jr. Sr. High School/

Southold

Regional Winner #2**

3171

HURRICANES

Westhampton Beach High School/Westhampton Beach

Regional Winner #3**

2872

CyberCats

The Wheatley School/

Old Westbury

Regional Engineering Inspiration Award**

6024

R Factor

Neighborhood Group/Mumbai, India

Regional Chairman’s

Award* **

2638

Rebel Robotics

Great Neck South High School/

Great Neck

* The Chairman’s Award is the most prestigious award of the event and recognizes the team that embodies the goals and purpose of FIRST and best represents a model for other teams to emulate.
** These teams are eligible to participate in the 2019 FIRST® Championship presented by Qualcomm® Incorporated at either the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas on April 17-20 or the Cobo Center in Detroit, Michigan on April 24-27.
*** Denotes a rookie team.