At the May 9 Tunkhannock Rotary Luncheon at Purkey's Pink Apple, Scott Howell (faculty mentor), Ryan Zalewski (student) and Andrzej Swietek (Rotary exchange student from Poland) gave a presentation on the competition experiences of the 2019 TAHS Robotics Team.
At their first competition, they were the District Event Winner. At the World Championship in Detroit, they were an Archimedes Subdivision Finalist. This was the second highest ranking in the Club’s history. They finished 12th at the Detroit World Championship. They ranked 6 out of 128 teams in First MidAtlantic District.
Guest Fred Harding was then asked to talk briefly about how the TAHS Robotics Club got started. He recalled it started in 1997 from a small note in his mailbox from Kent Kresge. There were only 2 competition sites back then and now there are over 30 sites. Now there are international teams from Taipei, Sweden, Canada, etc. Rotary supported him in helping to get things going in the early years and he ran the Club for 10 years. His very first team included Dia Siraki, who was a Rotary exchange student from Serbia (Hungary) and this year’s team now has Andrzej Swietek, our current Rotary exchanges student from Poland.
After their presentation, Pres.-Elect Sandy Lane presented the Team with a check for $1,000 to help support the TAHS Robotics Club.
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Pres. Elect Sandy Lane presenting a $1,000 check to the Robotics Club, which was accepted by Scott Howell, Ryan Zalewski and Andrzej Swietek