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Jr. Robotics Make Mark

Just like the older kids that make up the more senior Garden City robotics teams, the members of Team Fun and Crazy Creators, GCRL’s two Jr. FLL teams, participated in the 5th Annual Jr. FLL Expo held at Longwood High School in Middle Island on Sunday March 3. The event is sponsored by The School Business Partnerships of Long Island.  Longwood Central School District hosted the event and is one of the event sponsors. Team Fun won the Team Spirit Award and The Crazy Creators won the Teamwork Award.

The Crazy Creators, all third-graders, are Charlie Ambach, Julian Bubniak, Riley Sanz, Max Sclafani and Nicholas Stamidis and are coached by Ken Ambach and Constantine Stamidis.

The members of Team Fun are Harrison Cottrell (7), Maeve Dorney (9), Ella Mele (9), Matthew Tusiani-Eng (7), and Patrick Wren (9).  

The team, coached by Parent Emily Arnone, developed a LEGO model representing a Satellite Driven GPS where seniors could get to the hospital via a fully automated ambulance.  The ambulance would get them to the hospital quickly when necessary without requiring a driver, and also directly through traffic.  When interviewing their senior partners the members of Team Fun identified that GPS was a recent innovation that has greatly improved their lives by enhancing the Seniors’ mobility. At the same time they began working on their project, Google announced that they were developing a fully automated vehicle, which Team Fun then incorporated into their project.

News

On June 1, the Lutheran Church of Our Savior on Franklin Avenue held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for the Port Washington community to celebrate its $1.7-million expansion and renovation. The money has been donated by the congregation as well as through fundraising efforts that have taken place for over a decade. BBS Architects, Landscape Architects and Engineers designed the expansion and renovations, and Triton Construction served as the general contractor.

“I am very excited that we were able to improve our facilities for the benefit of the congregation as well as the entire Port Washington community,” said Reverend Dr. Charles R. Vogeley. “I would like to thank all congregation and project team members who made today’s re-opening celebration possible. In particular, I would like to recognize Tom Rice, who managed the entire project on behalf of our church, Roger Smith and BBS Architects, who designed the beautiful addition and new interiors, and the tireless supporter of the Port Washington community and parish secretary, after whom we have named the new kitchen, Veronica Ann Mosby,” Reverend added.

First Anniversary of Series

Café Music, the Friday night music series at the Dolphin Bookshop, will showcase a diverse line up of new and returning musicians this month. The series began on Friday, June 7, with songwriters Nikki Talley and Rupert Wates, performing in Port Washington for the first time. Talley performs Americana and Folk music with her husband. Based in North Carolina, she was excited to include Dolphin in her northeast tour. Wates is an award winning songwriter who also made his Dolphin debut.


Sports

On May 23, the Port Washington Badminton team won its second straight Nassau County Championship by defeating Calhoun by a score of 4-3.  This is the third year in a row that Port has played Calhoun in the county finals, with each contest decided by a score of 4-3.  In many ways this season followed the same pattern as last year.  Of the thirty five teams in the county, Calhoun and Port entered the playoffs as the one and two seeds, respectively.  They were Conference I co-champions, but because Calhoun’s margin of victory was greater than Port’s in their two regular season matches, the Colts got the number one seed.  

On April 16, Port travelled to Calhoun and lost 1-6.  The final team score, however, did not reflect how close the match actually was.  Four of Calhoun’s wins came in three set matches (matches are best of three) that came down to the final few points.  According to Coach David O’Connor, “It was the best 1-6 loss I’ve ever seen.  We walked out of their gym very confident that we could beat them in the future.  It may have been a major loss on paper, but I think it really got our players motivated for the rest of the season.”  

In only its third season, Port Rowing has grown from an exciting start up to a Long Island powerhouse, to a state champion, and now to a top national contender. Three boats qualified from New York State championships to represent Port Rowing at the largest high school Regatta in the world, The Stotesbury Cup, in Philadelphia. There were over 150 schools from America and Canada at the event, and Port Rowing came right out of the gate on fire. The team advanced all three boats into the second round of top 18. In the second round the boats fell just shy of the top 6 final by mere seconds. In the end, the Boys Freshman 8 took 12th overall, and the girl’s lightweight four and men’s junior eight took 7th overall. In the Adaptive category, Michael and Molly took home the title with a demanding victory in the double. It was a great achievement from the pair that just started rowing together less than a year ago to win the Stotesbury Cup.


Calendar

Opening Day at Manorhaven Pool

Saturday, June 15

Building a Bat Box at Sands Point Preserve

Sunday, June 16

Water Panel at Port Washington Library

Wednesday, June 19



Columns

The Worst-Case Coliseum
Written by Sheila Ferrari

Belmont Stakes 2013: A Sure Bet
Written by Mike Barry, MFBarry@optonline.net