Cheer for home team at regional robotics bout


FALLS VILLAGE — The robotics team at Housatonic Valley Regional High School will compete in the New England-UTC Robotics Regional competition this weekend, March 15 and 16, at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford.

This annual event is always lively and colorful, and community members are encouraged to come out and root for the champion Who’sCTEKS (pronounced Housy Techs).

The focus of the contest, which attracts some 60 teams from around New England, is skill contests between teams of high school students and robots they have created using kits provided by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), which was founded by inventor Dean Kamen to encourage an interest in engineering.

Student teams receive parts and software and have six weeks to build a robot and get it to the regional and national competitions. Different teams are more or less skilled at different aspects of engineering, so the teams pair up at the contests.

The negotiations from team to team send students scurrying around the convention center, usually wearing brightly colored team T-shirts, their clothing heavily laden with metal "buttons" that the teams make and share with each other.

Housatonic has had an active and able robotics team for several years now. Guidance is provided by school staffers Dave Lindsay, Cindy Fuller and Thomas "Doc" Schindler; by Becton Dickinson Engineer Andy Brockway; and by parent Dave VanDeusen.

The Who’sCTEKS were the regional champs after the Hartford regional contest in 2005. The team earned second-place honors in 2004. This year’s team is made up of experienced players including seniors Linnea Palmer Paton, Evan Slaughter, Dillon Greenberg and Ben Gerowe; juniors Isaac Freund and James Leonard; and sophomores Naomi Adler, Emily VanValkenburg and Kyle Greenberg. Joining the team in Hartford will be Lindsey Hutzler and Justin Taylor.

Top competitors at the 30 regional competitions will qualify for spots in the annual national championship in April at Atlanta’s Georgiadome.

Admission is free to the Hartford competition. Setup and practice rounds are on Thursday. Qualifying rounds are Friday. Finals are on Saturday. There will be opening ceremonies on Friday and Saturday at 9 a.m. and closing ceremonies on both days at 4:30 p.m.


— Cynthia Hochswender

Latest News

Tuning up two passions under one roof

The Webb Family in the workshop. From left: Phyllis, Dale, Ben and Josh Webb, and project manager Hannah Schiffer.

Natalia Zukerman

Magic Fluke Ukulele Shop and True Wheels Bicycle Shop are not only under the same roof in a beautiful solar powered building on Route 7 in Sheffield, but they are also both run by the Webb family, telling a tale of familial passion, innovation and a steadfast commitment to sustainability.

In the late ‘90s, Dale Webb was working in engineering and product design at a corporate job. “I took up instrument manufacturing as a fun challenge,” said Dale. After an exhibit at The National Association of Music Merchants in Anaheim, California, in 1999, The Magic Fluke company was born. “We were casting finger boards and gluing these things together in our basement in New Hartford and it just took off,” Dale explained. “It was really a wild ride, it kind of had a life of its own.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Robert Cray’s soulful blues coming to Infinity Hall

Robert Cray

Photo provided

Blues legend Robert Cray will be bringing his stinging, funky guitar and soulful singing to Infinity Hall Norfolk on Friday, March 29.

A five-time Grammy winner, Cray has been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and earned The Americana Music Awards Lifetime Achievement for Performance. He has played with blues and rock icons including Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, The Rolling Stones, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton and many more.

Keep ReadingShow less