(Photo provided)

LAKE PLACID — The Northwood School robotics team impressed organizers, judges and veteran teams with their performance and engineering designs at New York State Regional competitions over the past two weekends.

Northwood’s robotics team competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition series — an engineering design challenge that gives teams a specific set of rules and six weeks to build a robot and prepare for competition.

The Northwood team, FRC No. 6300, built a robot they call “Ricky Bobby” (after the main character in the NASCAR-themed movie: “Talladega Nights”). Like its namesake in the movie, this FRC robot likes to go fast.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is More Than Robots. The mission of FIRST is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting Mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills. Involvement in these programs inspires creativity and innovation and fosters personal growth in areas of self-confidence, communication skills, and leadership. Northwood students have felt this impact directly. All six of the high school seniors on the team have been accepted to college for next fall, with three of those choosing to study engineering at RPI.

Team 6300 competed at the Tech Valley Regional at RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) in Troy and the Hudson Valley Regional at RCC (Rockland Community College) in Suffern. These events drew teams from across New York state, the Northeast, Canada and seven other countries worldwide.

Northwood placed 10th out of 36 teams at the RPI event and went on to finish 5th in the championship round. At RCC, the team ranked 18th out of 48 teams in the qualifiers and finished 6th in the playoffs.

The Northwood team claimed four awards at these two events, earning the Top Rookie Seed award at both RPI and RCC for their results in the qualification rounds. The team was also recognized for their engineering design and teamwork by winning the Rookie Inspiration award at both events. The First Robotic Competition is a difficult and demanding challenge.

The Northwood team turned a few heads by winning back to back top rookie titles against the competitive field at these events.

The competition season is over for this year, but the members of team 6300 are already looking ahead to the 2018 FRC season where they plan to assert themselves as contenders among the regions veteran teams.