Peekskill High School's new Robotics team is off to a great start and quickly making a name for themselves amongst their peer engineers. After coming in 13th at their competition debut during last month's FTC Robotics Competition held at Riverside High School in Yonkers, the Iron Devils, (which they have appropriately named themselves), have once again shown they have a serious skill for engineering by coming in fourth of 12 competing teams at the Regional "Rube Goldberg Competition" at the 12th Annual Lower Hudson Valley Engineering EXPO which took place on Sunday, March 22 at White Plains High School.

The event, which is the largest of its kind in our area, hosted student engineers from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Six Peekskill students, along with their Robotics Teacher Carlo Vidrini, attended the competition to represent the class, whose members all contributed to the building of the Iron Devil's "contraption."

The contest required each participant's machine to use a minimum of 20 steps to erase a blackboard. In Vidrini's class, each student was assigned a task, whether it be sketching the machine's design, recording results or building the actual contraption. At the competition, the students were also asked to submit a written step by step manual explaining why the machine was constructed the way that it was. Vidrini's students chose to use common household items such as mouse traps, cups, Velcro, and a desk lamp to make their machine, and were the only team of the 12 contestants to have their contraption successfully complete the full 20 steps without any manual intervention.

"As the Robotics teacher, I could not be prouder of the Iron Devils," Vidrini said. "I'd like to say a big 'thank you' to all of their families for their support."