On Saturday, Feb. 7, top LEGO robotics teams from across
the Hudson Valley gathered for the FIRST LEGO League Challenge Championship, held at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Sleepy Hollow’s team, The Sneaky Bots, earned a
spot at the championship following a successful performance at a regional qualifier earlier this
season, where they were recognized with the Innovation Award.
At the Hudson Valley Championship, The Sneaky Bots distinguished themselves with a standout
robot performance, earning the #1 Robot Performance Award after achieving a remarkable
420 points — a score unmatched at the event, with no other team able to reach the 400-point
threshold. The last time an FLL team scored over 400 points in a Hudson Valley Championship
was 2022.
The Robot Performance Award is the only category where every team competes directly. It
reflects months of strategy, programming and engineering refinement, culminating in a
high-pressure, 2.5-minute match. Each team only has three matches at the tournament, and
although they compete on the same FLL-provided mat and set that they practice on all season,
teams have to account for a multitude of unknown variables with the condition of how the official
tables are built and set up the day of the competition.
The team was energized by their strong performance at last year’s Championship, but this is the
first year the team won awards. Over the summer, they spent time learning mechanical
engineering and coding concepts, and this fall, the team designed a completely custom robot,
using their imaginations and creativity to design a robot from scratch that competed better than
all 75 teams participating this season.
FIRST Lego League Challenge has a completely separate component unrelated to robotics, a
research & innovation project. This year’s theme was archaeology and teams had to clearly
define a challenge faced by archaeologists and come up with a helpful solution. The team won
the Innovation Award at their qualifying meet at the French American School in Mamaroneck
for their automated sifter, affectionately called the “Sift-O-Matic.” The team used the engineering
design process to design a sketch, prototype, and actually build the Sift-O-Matic, which they
tested with sand on the shores of the Hudson River. Their invention was able to sift 35% faster
and with half the required manpower than a manual sifter. The team was able to identify this
challenge while taking a tour of the Tarrytown Historical Society with Sara Mascia, Executive
Director and archaeologist. They toured the center and had a hands-on opportunity to try their
hand at sifting.
The Innovation Award is a judged award and is given based on scores given by volunteers
judging FIRST Lego League. No one panel of judges sees all of the presentations, and some
judges have more or less experience than others. The team was grateful to have received such
high marks from the experienced and supportive judges at the French American School.
The team is comprised of sixth and seventh graders Tega Nakpodia, Ben Margolius, Robbie
Smiley, Sebastian Zagorski and Michael Zammit, and is coached by Liz and Mike Zammit.
The team received high marks on Core Values, another component of the program, for helping a
new Sleepy Hollow fourth-grade team,The Super Builder Bros, get started with FLL this year,
and they hope to see that team build on their success in the coming years.
The team has many mentors and experts to thank for helping them this season. They are
especially grateful to the Hudson Valley Writers Center for allowing them to use their space to
practice.