Gershow Recycling donates scrap metal for robotics competition

Gershow Recycling has opened its Medford, New York, facility for nearly 10 years to the Long Island, New York FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics teams, including coaches, students and their parents, so they can collect aluminum scrap to use in building 120-robots. This year, 16 teams participating in Gershow’s Scrap Metal Day donation event, which was Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017.

Gershow has nine New York locations: Brooklyn, New Hyde Park, Valley Stream, Freeport, Lindenhurst, Huntington Station, Bay Shore, Medford and Riverhead.

Following the 2018 FIRST Robotics Competition kick-off, which was Saturday, Jan. 6, at Stony Brook University, each of the teams has six weeks to construct a robot using the aluminum and prepare for the upcoming competition, presented by School-Business Partnerships of Long Island Inc. (SBPLI). 

The 16 Long Island teams that participated in Gershow’s Scrap Metal Day were Bridgehampton High School, Central Islip High School, Center Moriches High School, Half Hollow Hills High School, Hauppauge High School, Kings Park High School, Longwood High School, Miller Place High School, North Shore High School, Patchogue-Medford High School, Plainview-Old Bethpage High School, Rocky Point/Shoreham, Townsend Harris High School, Ward Melville High School and Westhampton Beach High School. One rookie team, Mineola, also attended the event under the guidance of veteran team representatives.

Now entering its 19th season, the annual SBPLI Long Island Regional FIRST Robotics Competition is at Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex in late March or early April. Following record-breaking registration for the 2017 SBPLI Long Island Regional, the organization is now hosting two regional tournaments across two sets of consecutive dates, April 9 to 11 and April 12 to 14, 2018. Each event will serve as a separate regional, with different teams from across the northeast, including Long Island, New York City, Greater New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington, competing. Canada, Croatia and Turkey also have teams in the competition. The participants will compete in separate alliances and in tournament rounds.