Ulster BOCES Receives Robotics Team Grant

PORT EWEN— Ulster BOCES Career & Technical Center has received $12,000 in grant funding to participate in the upcoming Tech Valley Robotics Competition events.

The first $6,000 was made possible by a grant from New York Tech Valley FIRST® Sponsors: GLOBALFOUNDRIES, GE, ASML, M+W Group, KLA-Tencor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Time Warner Cable, National Grid, Mattson Technology, Lam Research, Applied Materials, Turner Construction, SCREEN USA, Wonik IPS, and PDF Solutions. It will provide funds for the Ulster BOCES team to purchase competition necessities such as tools, materials, transportation, team paraphernalia, food, and miscellaneous expenses.

An additional $6,000 grant from NASA will pay for the team’s registration fees.
In November, students in the Ulster BOCES Pre-University/New Visions Advanced Robotics program competed in the Robot Rumble Off-Season Competition at Ballston Spa High School and took home the gold.

Since then, the students from the Advanced Robotics program, who have been joined by students in the Digital Design and Graphic Visual Arts programs, have been building a robot designed to compete in the upcoming tournaments. The students will attend the kickoff event in January at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, followed by the first competition in March at RPI. There, the Ulster BOCES students will compete against 34 teams from areas including Canada, China, The Netherlands, New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. The students will then take their robot to a competition in April in the FIRST® New York City Competition & Expo.

Christopher Backus of Saugerties High School says the November competition exposed them to different kinds of designs and inspired them to learn more about programming. “The biggest concern for us is programming because it is the most complex and hardest thing to do,” says Backus, adding that he and his teammates are pretty confident about the upcoming competitions. “We won first place [in the off-season rumble].

“Backus also says that building their robot from the ground up is an experience that is going to benefit him when he graduates and goes to college. “I think this gives us an edge. Most students go to college and they don’t have experience programming, machining, or any of the stuff that we are doing right now.”