North Fork robotics team heads to world championship

By the time most students have headed home, the robotics team at Southold High School is just getting started. Computers glow, tools scatter across tables, and a robot takes shape as students from three North Fork high schools design, code and rebuild, while mentors hover nearby with a coffee or two in hand.

For the 26-member squad, it’s a routine that stretches from 3 to 9 p.m. most days, with Saturdays reserved for even more.

That grind has carried the North Fork robotics program — Team R.I.C.E. 870 — back to the FIRST world championship for the seventh time after a victory at the Long Island regional competition last month.

Team mentor Ken Tiu believes the local squad “out-efforts a lot of teams” that might have more resources at their disposal.

“There are teams up island that probably have more engineering resources just because there is an industrial park up there and there are a lot more businesses,” Mr. Tiu said, “but I think one thing that we do really really well is we out-work a lot of teams.”

The 24-year-old program is built on more than just programming and mechanics, with communication and collaboration at its core. The team has welcomed Greenport High School students since 2015 and began incorporating interested Mattituck High School students last year.

During competitions, students work with other schools’ teams to win the “game” — this year the robots had to collect balls and shoot them into a basket to score points. Team scouts evaluate their competition and determine which two teams to partner with in playoff alliances.

Southold High School valedictorian Elizabeth Estrada, one of the team’s strategists and scouts, said the competitions have helped her improve her communication skills when figuring out what other teams the North Fork squad can work with during playoffs.

“I’ve sort of always worked with strategy and figuring out what our robot and what our alliance partners are going to do during a match,” the senior said. “I think speaking with so many other teams and meeting so many different types of people has really helped me be better at communicating my ideas.”

Students work with mentors and local businesses between January and March ahead of the competition season to design and build the robot to the year’s constraints. Size and weight are key factors, especially with obstacles on the field that the robots must navigate while collecting and shooting balls.

Each match begins with 20 seconds of fully autonomous play, when the robot operates on pre-coded instructions. During the next 2 minutes and 20 seconds, the robot is controlled by the drive team — Southold High School senior Laila Rose, Mattituck High School senior Luke Mauro and Southold High School sophomore Wyatt Watkins.

Greenport High School senior Shepherd Odell, a multi-sport athlete and this year’s salutatorian, helps give the team the edge in competition. He serves as the human scorer, handling balls delivered to his station at the edge of the court.

That preparation paid off at the Long Island regional competition at Hofstra University, where Team 870 competed alongside alliance teammates from Kings Park and Southampton.

Nonetheless, the crew is always planning ways to improve, including retrofitting their robot with a different shooting mechanism.

“Everything is a learning opportunity,” Elizabeth said of the rebuild. “We saw that our robot had a ceiling, and we just knew that we could do better and we had the time … The second we had that idea, we just got right on it and we had it set by the time we got back from competition.”

That push to improve traces back to longtime mentor Bob Gammon’s mantra: “effort equals results.” He led Team 870 to its greatest victory to date in 2023, when it placed second overall in the world championships.

“Some teams after winning an event will just go home and relax,” Mr. Tiu noted. “We’re grinding to our next event.”

The interdisciplinary nature of the team is what Southold High School senior Corinna Carbajal believes helps it stand out.

“A lot of our members do sports … and a lot of us do drama club,” Corinna said. “So most of our students give a lot of hours to robotics, but at the same time they’re very busy with their own things.”

The team will now gear up another regional test before trying to conquer 600 other teams from around the globe. It will compete at the New York Tech Valley Regional competition April 15 through April 18, then head to the world championship in Houston from April 29 through May 2.

FIRST was founded in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen and is a global nonprofit that fosters team-based robotics programs for K-12 students. The acronym stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

Community members can support the team’s travel costs by purchasing merchandise or donating to a GoFundMe campaign led by the Southold School Education Foundation.

“Everything we do wouldn’t be possible without their support,” said Ashley Monti, a team mentor. To follow along, the team is posting updates from competitions on its Instagram @Team870 and website.