Techno Ticks 236 from Old Lyme, Connecticut won the Chairman’s Award at the 2010 FIRST Championship.

Lyme-Old Lyme High School’s robotics team, the Techno Ticks, won the Chairman’s Award at the International FIRST Robotics Championship held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta during April 16-18. This award comes with $10,000 in scholarship money that will be given to one of our seniors.

FIRST presents a Regional Chairman’s Award at each regional competition. The Techno Ticks have won a regional Chairman’s Award for seven years in a row – a record amongst the 1700 FIRST teams now in operation.

The winners of the current year’s Regional Chairman’s Awards are eligible to compete for the Chairman’s Award presented at the FIRST Championship in April.

The acronym FIRST represents “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”

Accordingly, FIRST’s website states that “The FIRST Robotics Competition is about much more than the mechanics of building a robot or winning a competitive event. It is about the partnership among people who are part of the FIRST community and the impact on those who participate in the FIRST programs with a united goal of achieving FIRST’s mission. FIRST’s mission is to change the way young people regard science and technology and to inspire an appreciation for the real-life rewards and career opportunities in these fields.

The Chairman’s Award was created to keep the central focus of the FIRST Robotics Competition as our ultimate goal for transforming the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as to encourage more of today’s youth to become scientists, engineers and technologists.

The Chairman’s Award represents the spirit of FIRST. It honors the team that, in the judges’ estimation, best represents a model for other teams to emulate, and which embodies the goals and purposes of FIRST. It remains FIRST’s most prestigious award.”

Teams which win the Championship Chairman’s Award are entered into FIRST Hall of Fame and are automatically invited to attend the Championship in future years.

This year’s competition required teams to submit a 10,000 word essay and a 3-minute video. Channel 3’s Kevin Hogan mentored the students in making this video and portrayed a reporter doing a story on the impact the team has had.

At the Regional and Championship Competitions, three students from the team gave a 5-minute presentation which complemented the contents of the essay and the video, and they were asked questions by a panel of judges after giving their presentations.

At the Championship, the Techno Ticks’ Chairman’s Award presentation team included sophomore Elizabeth Bagdorf and juniors Alex Mayne and Andrew Winter. At the Connecticut Regional Competition, the presentation team included freshman Ari Skoufos, Andrew Winter, and senior Evan Anway.

Dominion Power is the team’s primary sponsor, although the team’s 11 years of success were due to the extraordinary efforts of many volunteers and supporters including parents, adult mentors, Lyme-Old Lyme School staff and administrators, the Lyme-Old Lyme Board of Education, the Lyme-Old Lyme Chamber of Commerce, and the Lyme-Old Lyme Lions Club.

The team is scheduled to be honored at the April 22, 2009 Board of Education meeting, held at 7:30 pm in the Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School cafeteria.

The Techno Ticks have also been selected to be part of the June opening of the new $150 million Connecticut Science Center. The team’s robot will be part of the FIRST exhibit located in the Forces In Motion gallery.

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