Autumn Years Winter 2023/24

S o on January 6, life will get very, very intense for River Vale’s Jack Teadore. He is the head coach and programming/electronics mentor for the Pascack Pi-oneers FIRST Robotics Team 1676, one of several at schools in the region. The 60-year-old helps direct an enormous cadre of ro botics students in the schools that send students to the Pascack Valley Regional High School District. The four main coaches are Jack, James “Doc” Whitfield, Kevin Killian and Lisa Ruggieri. They are joined by volunteers who are alumni, parents and industry professionals. They guide students who create and build the robot, and work on marketing, finances, publicity and public events that promote the team. Jack got involved with the Pascack Pi-oneers because he saw the opportunity to be involved with robotics at the middle-school level in programs based on LEGOs. That experience led Jack to volunteering at the high school level with the Pi-oneers, and in 2009 he got involved with the shop at Pascack

“I have become much more adept—what they want has much more impact. We pride ourselves on participation—the whole team votes on various stages in the design and development of their robot,” says Jack.

Hills High School. To participate more directly, he got a substitute teaching cer tificate. Eventually, it became difficult for Jack to volunteer with both the middle- and high-school robotics teams. “It’s not easy to walk away from the LEGO stuff and I know the teachers,” he says. He concentrates now on the high school robotics but helps with the mid dle-school programs as needed. Com petitive by nature, Jack has changed his style of mentoring because he learned to teach the students by letting their interests guide him. “I have become much more adept—what they want has much more impact. We pride ourselves on participation—the whole team votes on various stages in the design and de velopment of their robot.” The team has to evaluate which skill the robot needs:

Throw a ball? Climb? Place an object on a pedestal? At each stage, they think about three or four ways for the machine to accomplish that skill. In 2023, that cooperative effort result ed in the Pi-oneers standing at number one in an off-season competition at the Bridgewater Mall, until Joe the robot’s bumper came off, exposing its battery and leading to disqualification. While that was a major disappointment, it typi fies many of the challenges of bringing each robot from concept to competition. The whole team votes on the best concept to achieve the competition goal, then the build team begins work on a wood-and metal prototype. They try it out then build the “flight robot”—the actual machine that will be entered in the competition. The process

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AUTUMN YEARS I WINTER 2023/24