About Us
Lynn Tech Robotics Team
Lynn Vocational and Technical Institute is home to an exciting extra-curricular program entitled the Lynn Tech Robotics Team.
It is a completely voluntary endeavor, which meets after school, 3-9pm, and on Saturdays, 8am to 3pm. Mr. Christopher Speropolous
and Mr Robert Beaton, both teachers in the electronics program at the school, are the advisors for the Team. All students at LVTI
are eligible to participate. Many are minority students and/or come from low income homes. This is the third year the program has
been in existance.
The Program is dependent upon fundraising to meet its needs. In addition , donations are sought from individuals, corporations and
various groups. The General Electric Corporation has been a key sponsor, donating funds as well as engineers to assist as mentors on the team.
Students design, build and run a robot to compete in a competition. This allows them to focus on a number of different fields such as science,
math, computer technology, invention, and teamwork. NASA gives them a set of very exact specifications, and then they must build
their robot in a l;imited time period. Mastering new information is much easier when it is applied to a real world scenario and
content of a complex nature becomes alive as students move through the assembly and operation of their robot.
In march of this coming year, The Lynn Tech Robotics Team will enter the First Roborics Competition which takes place in Boston.
FIRST is an acronym that mean: for inspiration and recognition of science and technology. It is an exciting, multinational competition in which
professionals and young people work together to solve an engineering and design problem in an instance and competitive way.
The Lynn Tech Robotics Team won the Rookie of the year honors in 2006 and went on to compete in Atlanta. This was an event for many of
those students, some of whom rarely venture outside of the state.
In the past, competitions have drawn students from many different countries including Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Isreal, and Mexico.
Over 28,000 students in the United States participated in 2007 representing almost every state in the union. The competitions
are high-tech spectator sporting events, the result of lots of focused brainstorming, real-world teamwork, dedicated mentoring,
project timelines, and deadlines.
The primary goal of this program is to involve students in all aspects of each phase of the FIRST robotics program.
Students can participate in any number of areas including design, maufacture, computer software, fundraising, as well as troubleshooting.
This allows students to see first hand all of the aspects and phases of product development. It gives them a real-life experience that
can otherwise be difficult to duplicate in a school setting.
