On March 18 and 19, over 10,000 spectators gathered at Hofstra University to watch 40 teams of high school students compete at the first Robotics Long Island Regional competition to earn a spot at the FIRST USA Championship to be held April 21-23 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA.

Several teams received honors and recognition that rewarded design excellence, competitive play, sportsmanship and high-impact partnerships between schools, businesses and communities. The Robotics team from Plainview Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, the POBOTS, received the Motorola Quality Award.

"The winners demonstrated tremendous teamwork, professionalism and strategic thinking to overcome the challenges of competition," said Fred Breithut, president of the School-Business Partnership of Long Island, which sponsors the Long Island Regional FIRST competition. "The fun and excitement of the competition was evident as many students, professional mentors, school groups and community members caught the spirit and came to cheer on their favorite teams as engineering and technology at work surpassed the excitement of a championship athletic event."

With the hope of winning one of several coveted awards, high school students worked with professional mentors to design and build a robot that solves a problem using a kit of parts and a standard set of rules. The students gathered to compete with their robots in this year's game, "Triple Play," which took place on the playing field with a mix of robot and human players. Robots earned points by placing tetras onto triangular goals.