robotics – Seidenberg School News

Robots fight it out for top spot in FTC competition

What better way to spend a wintry Sunday than watching robots battle it out for the top spot in the First Tech Challenge regional championship? On

February 5^th, Seidenberg hosted the 8^th annual challenge that saw teams from New York and nearby states descend upon our Pleasantville campus and compete for prizes.

Teams comprised of grades 7-12 students who, over a period of months, had to design, build, and program robots to complete specific types of challenges. They don’t go in unprepared, though. Dr. Richard Kline of the Seidenberg School and organizer of the event also arranges training workshops for students so they can learn. Robot building and programming is at “team workshops where high school students learn design and programming skills using Java and the Android Studio mobile app development system,” said Dr. Kline.

Each year, the contest is different, so even competitors who have taken part before had a unique challenge on their hands!

The excitement in the air was palpable in the moments before the first round of the tournament kicked off. “This is your Super Bowl,” Seidenberg Dean Jonathan Hill told the crowd in his opening remarks.

Dr. Kline thanked everybody for coming out to the championship, which we have also hosted in previous years. He went on to emphasize the main tenets of the First Tech Challenge (FTC) events: gracious professionalism and acting with kindness and respect in the face of fierce competition.

Then it was time to start! Challenges in the competition focused on teams’ abilities to make quick decisions, as they received just 30 seconds to program their robots followed by two minutes where they could use controllers to move them around.

The game was called Velocity Vortex. Robots were tasked to scoop up wiffle balls and a larger yoga ball and throw them into hoops, kind of like basketball. While doing so, they could also claim beacons, which were lights that could be triggered to display their team color.

Each team played in 5 matches for the chance to win trophies, scholarships, internship opportunities and good old fashioned glory.

And the results?

Inspire Award – top overall team as determined by the judges

Winner: 4347 NanoGurus, home-based team from Morris Plains NJ
2nd: 5484 Enderbots, home-based team from Corning, NY
3rd: 7488 Nuts & Volts, Suffern High School, Suffern NY

Competition Winners – champions of the elimination tournament that ended the day – an “alliance” of three teams

Alliance Captain: 6081 i^2robotics, home-based team from Westport, CT
1st Partner: 6347 Geared Up, home-based team from Rome, NY
2nd Partner: 5484 Enderbots

Competition Runners-Up

Alliance Captain: 7486 Team Fusion, Suffern High School, Suffern NY
1st Partner: 4347 NanoGurus
2nd Partner: 12052 Ossining O-Bots, Ossining High School, Ossining NY

It was an exciting and memorable event, helped by the continued dedication of Dr. Kline and volunteers that helped the day run smoothly.

Dr. Kline said: “We are thrilled that so many Seidenberg students and alumni volunteer their time to assist these great robotics teams, not only at the championship, but at the five qualifying tournaments we have held.”

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.

This 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!

The 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.

This 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!

High School Students Explore Robotics & Game Programming @ Pace

On Saturday November 1^st, the Seidenberg School hosted their second Hands on Technology Day Workshops (HOT Workshops). High School students attended workshops about Game Programming, taught by Dr. Mary Courtney, and Robotics, taught by Dr. Pauline Mosley. Participants were able to get a real hands-on experience. In Dr. Mary Courtney’s workshop, participants learned interactive programming using an international programming environment Greenfoot. They also used the Java language. In Dr. Pauline Mosley’s workshop, students learned how sensors can assist autonomous vehicles in detecting objects. They each got to program, build, and test their own robot.

We collected a lot of great feedback from the event form both the professors and participants. Participants loved the topics that were covered, the hands-on elements, the instructors, and the current Pace Seidenberg Students who came to help out. The Professors were greatly encouraged by the excitement that the participants brought to the sessions and how they really dived into each of the workshops.

The Seidenberg School would like to thank all the staff from Seidenberg and the Pace University Admissions office that helped make the day a wonderful success.

Here are some pictures from the event:

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IMG_20141101_111124_Pace_Seidenberg IMG_20141101_104039_Pace_Seidenberg

A Chat with Seidenberg CS ’13 Alum, Keith McPherson

In keeping in touch with Seidenberg alumni, we’re able to keep track of the success they reap from their Seidenberg education. Now we’d like to share this information with you, to better prepare you for life before, during, and after your Seidenberg Experience. Today we’re sharing with you what we’ve learned from Computer Science alum of ’13, Keith McPherson.

Keith explained to us that he never decided to study computer sciences but, instead, was called to the degree through his own passions and interests in computing. The same happened in his choice to come to Pace University. He was accepted into 08‘s Seidenberg Summer Scholars Experience and then knew he would study at no place other than Pace after his participation in the program.

Looking back on his experience at Pace, McPherson said, “I don’t believe I could’ve gone to school anywhere else and had a comparable experience. Seidenberg isn’t a school; it’s a family. The people I met and opportunities I had were all amazing and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.”

McPherson now works at a large EMR (Electronic Medical Record) software company that he describes as a “market leader in providing an integrated system to large hospitals.” When we asked if he was able to integrate his knowledge from Seidenberg into his job, he replied, “The fundamentals of CS are something I use everyday, but the languages, frameworks and projects I work on were never even discussed. This is mostly because I work in a very specialized industry with very specialized technology. I had 6 months of training before I was allowed to start actually working on their software.”

Some of the software McPherson works on and owns is used by more than half the doctors in the country. While McPherson is excited that he is helping the medical world, the only downside is that he is occasionally required to write in archaic languages like MUMPS.

Remembering his time at Seidenberg, McPherson gives a nod to Prof. Benjamin, whose classes he enjoyed, and Dr. Kline, with whom he volunteered for FIRST and worked on many research projects. He also recommends the class on Compilers, which he explains verbatim, “turned me into a man.”

McPherson left his own advice for today’s students of Seidenberg: “You’ve been told this a million times, but get good grades and work on side projects. Every offer I had upon graduating required a good GPA and the awesome projects I had done made me stand out against other applicants. When you’re out of school and in the real world you’ll never say, ‘man I wish I would’ve sat in my dorm playing League of Legends more…’ you’ll say, ‘I wish I would’ve gone to class more.'”

The Vision of Spring ’14: The View from Week 1

The first week of Spring semester 2014 has now come and gone, and we all have a better picture of what to expect in the upcoming months of the semester. Around Seidenberg HQ, there is a buzz from students who eagerly anticipate an exciting semester ahead of them.

For example, senior Seidenberg student Valerie Cayo has mentioned her enthusiasm towards her honors thesis, which she is working on alongside of Professor Dwyer, Seidenberg’s Information Technology department chair. Her thesis revolves around game design, and Cayo states she’s just getting started and looks forward to where the project will take her, come May.

(L to R) Derek Li, Josué Vicioso, Valerie Cayo, and Aldous Castello hang out at Seidenberg HQ to work and relax between classes.

Another senior, Aldous Castelo talked about his goals for the semester: finishing stronger than ever, which he thinks is possible with a great first week. He specifically mentioned his goals of working hard in his most challenging, yet most interesting, class, Software Engineering with Prof. Scharff. Derek Li, a senior as well, also spoke of his intent to work hard this semester. He points out that he enjoys the rigor of his classes and the brain work required for each. Li also looks forward to his independent study with Prof Benjamin, who will work with Derek to learn more about artificial intelligence. Adding to the hard working student body, second semester freshman Artem Karapetyan is already putting effort into finding an internship by signing up for the career center‘s workshops that will whip him into shape for interviews and opportunities.

We also took a moment to talk to Dr. Kline about what he’s looking forward to. Kline eagerly brought up his involvement in the Hudson Valley First Tech Challenge, “an accessible, challenging robotics competition for students of high school age,” (FTC). The Hudson Valley Regional Championship will be held on fast-approaching February 16th, the winners of which will advance through levels, leading to the World Championship to be held in St. Louis, Missouri come April.