Another FIRST for Clearview robotics team

Clearview Robotics team 9848 Gearview has made history by earning the first-place Inspire Award during the For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) world championship in Houston.

The competition ran from April 29 to May 2 at the George R. Brown Convention Center and marks the second consecutive year that Gearview robotics has won. The group of high-schoolers was one of 342 teams across six divisions from around the world that competed at the competition after winning the state championship on March 15.

“The Inspire Award is the program’s highest honor, recognizing excellence across all aspects of the competition, including robot design, programming, performance, outreach and community impact,” said Ruth Barreiro, a Clearview coach.

Clearview was also named the top team in its division – the Jackson – which consists of teams from across the U.S., India, Kazakhstan, China, Cyprus, Thailand, the Netherlands, Canada, Brazil and Malaysia.

“GearView has established itself as one of New Jersey’s premier robotics teams through excellence in innovation, teamwork and community engagement,” Barreiro explained. “The team previously earned the Inspire Award at the New Jersey state championship and has advanced to the FIRST Championship for three consecutive years.

“Committed to an open-source approach, GearView shares its work to support learning and collaboration across the robotics community.”

The students of the championship team are Jonah Arbushites, Jacob Bowen, Mason Brooks, Mia Brooks, Steven DelRossi, James Dolan, TJ Gray, Joey Guzzo, Robert Lopez, Aleksei Mordovin, Michelle Odusami, Connor Rambo, Gabe Schweibinz, Brady Singh, Isabella Vu and Kevin Whitehead. The team’s other coach is Tara Pridy.

One of the things that GearView has credited with its success is the pineapple pipeline, named after the team’s pineapple mascot. It’s an effort to introduce STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to students from preschool to high school and to help develop their growth.

One of the Clearview team members, Odusami, has had experience with that.

“I joined Gearview through the pipeline,” she noted, “and the skills I’ve gained over my half decade in robotics are priceless.”

She joined the middle-school’s robotics team in seventh grade.

The team also credits outreach with securing sponsors, one of which is Printed Solid, a 3D printer manufacturer that has donated $5,500 worth of printers and filaments to support GearView.

“It is a great pleasure for us at Printed Solid and Prusa Research to support the students participating in the FIRST robotics competitions,” said Chris Pelesky, chief sales/marketing officer for Printed Solid. “These young men and women are the minds of our future, and we are glad to support them in their educational endeavors.”