Accepted students came to meet us and it was awesome

The first weekend of March brought frigid temperatures, but many students who have been accepted to the Seidenberg School braved the weather to meet us for lunch and learn with the Dean events on both campuses.

On the Pleasantville campus, accepted students and their parents visited Seidenberg for the first time for a warm, friendly event that included games, presentations, lunch, and the chance to get to know our community a little better. Seidenberg students, faculty, and staff attended to meet with our prospective new students – it was a lot of fun and we were delighted to meet the students we have invited to join us in the fall.

To offer a little taste of our academic program, we held a cryptography competition: teams were given a decoder pinwheel and had to crack several codes. The first few to finish were awarded prizes, so the competition got pretty heated and many a Seidenberg t-shirt was won. Congratulations to our winners!

There were also presentations from Matt Ganis, a Seidenberg alum who works at IBM. Professor Ganis also teaches here at Seidenberg – he offers classes in programming for Python.

Dean Dr. Jonathan Hill also made some remarks.

“College is both a choice and a cultural fit,” said Dean Hill, emphasizing the importance of finding the right program and community for your individual needs.

The next day, in New York, the lunch and learn took place as part of an overnight #PaceBound event happening at Pace University. There was an impressive turnout as accepted students and their parents flocked to join us for presentations, food, and fun!

Just like the Pleasantville event, faculty, students and staff enjoyed meeting new accepted students and getting the opportunity to chat about just what makes Seidenberg so special.

Seidenberg students Connor, Melanie, Eiman and Christian sat on a panel discussion and shared their experiences and the opportunities they have received as students at Pace. They also offered tips on how to navigate college-work-internships balance and their favorite things about Seidenberg.

Guest appearances were also made in the form of Lego robots – part of a programming challenge that got students thinking about code (there’s no such thing as a day off here!).

Seeing programming come to life in a hands-on exercise really helps cement the idea of just what you can do with programming.

We very much hope that everybody who attended our lunch and learn events had an excellent time. We certainly did – and we hope to see you here in the fall!

Want to learn about upcoming events? Connect with us!

Robot wars at the 7th FIRST® Tech Challenge Hudson Valley Championship Tournament!

Just under 300 accomplished young robot engineers descended on the Pleasantville campus on Sunday, February 21, to compete in the seventh annual FIRST® Tech Challenge Hudson Valley Championship Tournament!

The competitors were part of 28 high school robotics teams hailing from all over the tri-state area who had already met with success at regional qualifying tournaments. With them, robots they designed, built, and programmed came to battle it out for first place.

IMG_6850This year’s challenge was to design robots built to avoid or pick up “debris,” navigate to lighted “rescue beacons,” and climb a five-foot “mountain.” Winners would advance to the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship in the spring.

FIRST is an international, K-12 not-for-profit organization founded to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. Participants are also eligible to apply for exclusive college scholarship opportunities totaling $25 million.

Pace University has been a regional partner with FIRST since 2003, running competitions and team workshops that have served well over 6,000 middle- and high-school students.

So onto the winners!

MedalsThe game competition was won by an alliance of three teams:

  • i^2 robotics of Westport, CT
  • Quantum Mechanics of the Dalton School, New York, NY
  • Big Bertha of Putnam-Northern Westchester BOCES, Yorktown Heights, NY

Teams also earned awards in a variety of categories. The top judged award, the Inspire award, went to team NanoGurus of Morris Plains, NJ

Four teams will advance to the East Super-Regional Championship next month in Philadelphia, in hopes of moving further to the world championship in April in St Louis, Missouri. The four teams representing Hudson Valley will be:

  • i^2 robotics of Westport, CT
  • Quantum Mechanics of the Dalton School, New York, NY
  • NanoGurus of Morris Plains, NJ
  • Robogamers of New York, NY

We’d like to thank our Seidenberg student volunteers: Ethan Garrison, Sep DiMeglio, Zakiya Sims, Arize Lee, Diego Reyes-Rojas, Norissa Lamaute, Jordan Adelman, Carlo Clarke, David Bernstein and Joel Thomas.

A big thanks also to our staff and faculty who helped make the day possible: Belle Krupchek, Ava Posner, Andreea Cotoranu, Jean Coppola, Julie Gauthier, Larry Perlstein and Bernice Houle.

As if that wasn’t enough, several alumni also lent a hand! Thank you Joe Acampora, John Checco, Rocco Donofrio, Steve Grosmark, Marc Kearney, Alex Quick and Paat Sinsuwan.

IMG_6858This event wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the efforts of Dr. Rick Kline, our robotics champ. A hearty thank you and congratulations to Dr. Kline!

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