Finley Dragon Racers Capture Champion’s Award

J. Taylor Finley Middle School students competing on the Dragon Racers team captured the 1st Finalists Champion Award last week at the FIRST Long Island Championships.

Finley eighth graders Elisabetta Arra, Elena Prior, Caitlin Wegielnik, Cecilia Lee, Dylan Goodwin, Gavin Kline and Hunter Kline along with a seventh grader from the Long Island School of the Gifted, vied in the FIRST Lego League Challenge competition.

The theme for this year’s competition was Submerged. The Dragon Racers worked hard on researching topics, interviewing experts and volunteering at and visiting sites to expand their knowledge in the area of marine life. All that work led them to come up with an innovative technology to help save whales from boats and ships.

The team’s preparation and execution led to them taking home the 1st Finalist Champion’s Award, which is accompanied by the chance to participate at one of the FIRST Lego League’s Invitationals.

The team was led by coaches/mentors Shannen Delaney and Dr. Jessica Caporuscio. Four of the team members, also took part in the Suffolk County Music Educators Assn. festival concert soon after they finished with their FLL competition.

Mr. Lee (violin) and Ms. Wegielinik (bass) were part of the orchestra ensemble and Ms. Prior and Ms. Arra were part of the chorus.

“The kids stumped the judges with how well prepared they were for judging thanks to some help from the Huntington Robotics team who helped prep them for judging,” Ms. Delaney said. “Their robot design was super detailed and well documented according to the judges, with many innovative features such as a super code and team created wheels. The team also created a unique solution to reduce whale strikes by adding a speaker to ships to instruct whales to dive in specific locations. Whale strikes are the biggest killer of whales.”