BALLSTON SPA — The Ballston Spa High School Robotics Team 3044 was recently selected to receive a 2014 NASA Robotics Alliance Regional Challenge Grant. The grant supports the team’s registration fee (up to $5,000) for the New York Tech Valley Regional that will be held on March 13-15, 2014 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy.
Team 3044 is one of 10 teams to receive the Regional Challenge Grant and one of 88 veteran teams nationwide to be selected for a NASA Grant.
Superintendent Joseph P. Dragone, Ph.D. announced the award at a recent Board of Education meeting and expressed appreciation to those who wrote the grant request.
“Team Mentor David Torrey, together with Coach Greg Roberts and Science Coordinator Diane Irwin, put a lot of time and effort into coordinating an outstanding proposal as part of this competitive national funding opportunity,” Dragone said. “We are thrilled to continue to secure outside resources for our robotics programs.”
In addition to the grant, the team has once again received generous support from Ballston Spa National Bank (BSNB), the lead sponsor of the Robotics team since its rookie year, to fund the team’s participation in the annual US FIRST Robotics competition. The $6,000 in funding, combined with additional corporate sponsorships and team fundraising, will allow the district’s team to design and construct a robot according to this year’s specifications, participate in regional competitions and continue to expand the robotics initiatives to additional students in the district.
The team is anticipating and preparing for the announcement of the 2014 challenge that will take place on January 4. They are planning to compete in both the New York Tech Valley Regional Competition and the Finger Lakes Regional Competition this year.
FRC Team 3044 had their rookie season in 2009 with 18 students and four mentors and has since grown to over 40 students and 15 mentors this school year. The working philosophy of Team 3044 is to provide the opportunity for all students to grow into talented and productive young men and women who will be tomorrow’s innovators and leaders. This past year, the team and their alliance partners won the WPI Regional Competition and were able to participate in the FRC Championship Tournament in St. Louis, Missouri.
Take a look at the team’s webpage via the district website at www.bscsd.org or contact Science Coordinator Diane Irwin at the Ballston Spa High School at (518) 884-7150 for additional information on robotics initiatives in the Ballston Spa Central School District.
