The James Wilson Young Middle School robotics teams, Brainstormers 1087 and the RoboPhantoms 9556, have had an outstanding season, channeling their creativity and compassion into innovative projects inspired by this year’s competition theme, “Submerged.”
Both teams tackled real-world aquatic challenges while staying true to one of their core values, impact, by giving back to their community in meaningful ways. The Brainstormers dove into the world of underwater communication, identifying a lack of accessible resources for learning scuba diving hand signals— something that’s critical for diver safety. After consulting with diving professionals, they designed a kid-friendly illustrated guidebook featuring common hand signals such as “go up,” “go down,” “something’s wrong” and “shark.” The book was originally designed in Canva before being finalized through the BookBaby publishing platform. The team hopes to visit all the elementary schools in the district ahead of their next competition in June to share their book.
The RoboPhantoms focused on restoring the health of local marine ecosystems with their project, “SPOCK”, short for “spat rock”. Recognizing the essential role oysters play in filtering water, the team engineered a rock-like prototype made from concrete, crushed shells and calcium carbonate to replicate the ideal conditions for oyster growth. After months of testing in a lab, their prototype showed remarkable success with oysters growing up to three times faster than the control that they set. As a result, the environmental nonprofit Seatuck invited the team to install their prototype alongside their restoration project at Shorefront Park, allowing for live data collection and comparison.
Beyond these achievements, both teams demonstrated exceptional commitment to community service this year. The Brainstormers hosted a fundraiser at Bayport Flower House, raising over $2,000 for holiday gifts for underprivileged children in the Bronx. They also collected $250 in gift cards to support local families and hosted their second annual FIRST Family Fun Night to promote STEM education in the community.
Similarly, the RoboPhantoms organized several successful drives, including collecting 100 sweatshirts in a week for the Patchogue Soup Kitchen and running a food drive at King Kullen that yielded 30 cases of food and $200 in gift cards for a local pantry.
At the FIRST LEGO League Long Island Regional Championships, the Brainstormers earned the Core Values Award and the RoboPhantoms won the Innovation Project Award. The Brainstormers were ranked number three on Long Island and the RoboPhantoms were ranked number four out of over 160 teams.
Now, both teams are preparing to compete in prestigious international competitions come June. The Brainstormers will head to Daytona Beach for the Florida Sunshine Invitational on June 24-28. The RoboPhantoms will be heading to “WAFFLE” on June 12-15, a WPI Annual FIRST LEGO League Event, held at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts. FIRST LEGO League teams from around the world will be joining to showcase their innovation projects and robot designs in addition to competing in the robot competition rounds.