Garrett Morgan Academy to Send Team to New Jersey Regional – FIRST Robotics Competition

From February 26th through 28th, the Garrett Morgan Academy (GMA) Robotics team will compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition in Trenton. Garrett Morgan Academy is an innovative high school academy in Paterson with a 100% graduation rate. GMA is run through a partnership of the Paterson Public School District and New Jersey Community Development Corporation (NJCDC) for students with a special interest in transportation, technology, engineering and math. FIRST is a national non-profit organization created by inventor Dean Kamen to help students develop the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the technologically-drive global economy.

The GMA team, which is composed of fifteen students in grades nine through twelve, has spent six weeks designing their four-hundred pound remote-controlled robot. They have been guided by two Garrett Morgan Academy Engineering teachers, as well as volunteer mentors from various organizations, including BMW of North America. The Robotics team is supported financially by ADP, SES Americom, and State Farm Insurance.

The 2009 New Jersey Regional is a FIRST Robotics Competition that will be held at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton. This year’s challenge will include approximately sixty-three FIRST Robotics teams from New Jersey, New York City, Pennsylvania, and as far away as Florida and Canada. Thursday, February 26th is held as a practice and “tune-up” day for teams, while competition heats run from 9:30 am until 4:30 pm on Friday and Saturday.

This year’s competition, titled “Lunacy,” challenges teams and their robots to score points while escaping entrapment, to aide their teammates and to navigate a treacherous surface modeled after a lunar environment. Kenrick Ramdath, Engineering teacher and Robotics advisor at Garrett Morgan, said the students have been working around the clock for the past six weeks. “Once we got that kit of parts, the students have been here with me from very early before school to well into the evening,” said Ramdath. “They are really committed to succeeding this year, but they are having a great time with it as well. We have shared designs with teams from other high schools, and there is a feeling of confidence among us that we will be very competitive.”

For additional information on the 2009 FIRST Robotics New Jersey Regional Competition, contact David Gelman at dgelman@njcdc.org or (973) 413-1627.