East Harlem team prepares to compete in national championships
On the ground floor of Central Park East High School in East Harlem is a windowless room known as ‘The Cage’. The small room is divided in two, split with a chain link floor to ceiling fence. One half of the room serves as the basketball team’s locker room. The other half is home base for another team, the Warriors of East Harlem, an award-winning robotics squad.
The Warriors of East Harlem
Started in 2006, the team’s short history is an unusual success story. The team, which is open to students enrolled at the East Harlem Tutorial Program, has twice beaten their rivals from elite local science high schools such as Stuyvesant and Bronx High School of Science, going on to compete at the FIRST Robotics National Championships in Atlanta. This year, the team is hoping to repeat it’s success.
Students work to build and program a single robot (last year’s was named Jackie), to enter the regional competition, where the robot will be judged on its ability to perform various tasks or ‘battles’. Martin Cruz, 18, was the driver of the robot at last year’s regional competition. “It was an amazing experience,” he says, “It was so intense. You’re working to build things, fixing things that go wrong, judges are asking you questions…That was the first time I was under pressure like that, I was proud to be there.”
For most participants, the team is their first encounter with robotics. “I would have never imagined I’d be on a robotics team” says Janibaeo Jimenez, 16, as she attaches gears to the robotic arm. Jimenez travels an hour from her home to attend practice three afternoons a week, sometimes more. “I’d never done anything mechanical before. But it’s so much fun, I’m learning something new. The pride that comes from working on something like this….it’s a good feeling, you don’t get that feeling often.”
“Very simply, students from the community that we serve are largely underrepresented in careers in science and technology,” says Gerardo Garcia, the Robotics Manager. Known to his students as ‘G’, he previously worked as an architect before coming to the East Harlem Tutorial Center to develop a math and science curriculum. “We see this program as a way to address that need, to give students who might not otherwise have access to these resources interested in these fields.”
The East Harlem Tutorial Program is a non-profit enrichment program that provides educational and enrichment programs for over 700 students from K-12, free of charge.
Many of the robotics program’s alumni have gone on to study engineering and physics at the college level. Dax Feliz, 19, joined the robotics team his junior year of high school. “To me, EHTP [East Harlem Tutorial Program] was a God-send. Considering the neighborhood, it kept a lot of teenagers off of the street,” he says. Now pursuing a degree in Astrophysics at The University of Massachusetts Amherst, he credits the team with preparing him for college. “A lot of my best times were on the robotics team… I remember I used to be very timid but the team made me be sociable at the competitions.”
The upcoming season holds a special significance for the Warriors. Earlier this fall a former robotics team member, Glenn Wright, 21, was fatally stabbed in what police are calling a case of mistaken identity. A founding member of the team that went to the National Championships, Glenn was enrolled at Manhattan Community College and worked as a volunteer mentor at the robotics program when he was killed this September. Wright’s picture hangs on the door of the Warrior’s practice room. “Glenn was a great volunteer, he was always there to help us when we needed it,” said Nicholas James, 15, “We all looked up to him, and now this season we want to make him proud.”
The team is preparing diligently for the upcoming New York City Regional competition, which will take place March 12-14 at the Javits Center. This past summer, 10 students spent two weeks at the University of Virginia, where they covered a regent-level physics curriculum and were introduced to the basics of robotics. On Saturdays, 6-7 volunteers attend the practice, including two professional mechanical engineers, a Google programming engineer, and experts in CAD and animation. Garcia hopes to expand the curriculum: “We are in the progress of developing the program, working to help the kids develop skills that can translate into academic and personal success.”
Those skills do not come cheap. Garcia estimates that the program costs upwards of $20,000 for basic supplies and equipment. “Other teams have space with very nice tools, equipment, things that we just don’t have. We always do our best and do well with what we have. We use hand drills to build our robots, and sometimes you can tell.” The program is funded entirely through grants and donations. Despite the recession, the team is on track to be fully funded, thanks to a Westin Foundation donation to cover the $5000 competition entrance fee.
With the regional competition less than 4 months away, the team has high hopes for a successful season. “We’re the first team from Harlem to even make it to the competition. It would mean a lot for us to win,” says Msytere Acosta, 17. ” And who doesn’t like to win?”
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