A few weeks ago the Lindenhurst robotics team overseen by Mr. Slokovitz which is called the PSIcotics also known as team #533 went on an eight hour bus ride to Rochester to compete in the Finger Lakes Regional. They named the robot Athena. The competition was the result of a long and stressful build season in which the team went back to the drawing board multiple times after realizing that certain ideas would not work or would not be practical for the game at hand.

The game is called Power Up which as you can guess, had a video game theme. The robots had to pick up yellow cubes called power cubes and put them on these switches and scales and each team needed to stack their cubes on their side of switches and the scale. For each second the team controlled a switch and or scale they get a point. During the last 30 seconds of the match the teams must hang of this little metal pole. Than there are the power ups because what game isn’t complete without power ups. The power ups are boost, force, and levitate. “Boost” doubles the points you can earn. “Force” gives you control over the switch and/or scale. Lastly “levitate” allows a bot to get the points from climbing without actually climbing.

 The team fought long and hard and came out of it with five wins and five losses which is pretty impressive considering they only had one practice match leading up to it. The PSIcotics were placed 40th in the rankings out of 50 teams. The drive team which consists of Rachel Warren, Robert Fischer, and Michael Micara did well winning five matches.  

More recently Lindenhurst went to Hofstra to compete in the two regionals being held there coming in second place in the first one and 19th in the second. The team won 10 matches and only lost two in the first Hofstra regional and at the second regional the team won six and lost five and tied one. Again the drive team did amazing.  

Over the three regionals they attended, the team had won a multitude of awards. The first award they won was the safety award at the Rochester regional. This was mainly due to the safety captain of the team, Anthony Castello. Although not official, the team won two spirit awards their from two other teams.  But that’s not all. The team won two awards at the first Hofstra regional, they won the Wildcard award, which allowed them to go to Detroit and the team won the excellence in engineering award for their crazy yet amazing design. Lastly at the second Hofstra regional the team won the quality award.

The team has worked so hard to get to where they are. The drive team has done amazing at all of the regionals so far and it is expected to continue in Detroit. The programmers (Aidan Downey and Richard Pawelkiewicz) came up with a great system that allowed the robot to accomplish so much in autonomous mode. The team however needs help getting to Detroit. The team is trying to raise money to help fund the trip.If you wish to contribute here is the link to their gofundme. https://www.gofundme.com/lindenhurst-psicoticsteam-533