The Hathaway Brown FIRST Robotics Team 2399, the Fighting Unicorns, won the prestigious Engineering Inspiration Award at the Greater Pittsburgh Regional Tournament on March 7, 2015. According to US FIRST Robotics, "This award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school and community." In addition to receiving a trophy and medals for the team, The Fighting Unicorns also qualify for the FIRST Robotics Competition World Championship in St. Louis, April 22-25. This is the first time that The Fighting Unicorns have ever qualified.

Team 2399’s efforts in the community made judges take notice. As the only all-girls FIRST Robotics team in Northeast Ohio, the Fighting Unicorns make it their responsibility to spread the word about engineering, computer science, and robotics throughout the school and the wider community. In addition to helping mentor two FIRST Lego League Teams, and refereeing and judging at FLL Tournaments, team members demonstrated their robot at the Ohio STEM Meeting at the Ohio Aerospace Institute in October and ran a workshop for Boys Hope Girls Hope of Northeast Ohio in November. The team also helped mentor a new FRC team at Parma Constellation Schools Community High and offered them open access to HB's equipment. In the spring, the girls will assist with an after-school robotics club for grades 4-9 and run an afternoon workshop for the entire 8th grade. Likewise, Team 2399 is guiding the enhancement of Hathaway Brown’s expanding engineering efforts. Several of the girls are on the design team for HB’s new Fab Lab.

Not content to wait for the trip to St. Louis, the Fighting Unicorns also competed at the Buckeye Regional FIRST Robotics Competition on March 26-28 at the Cleveland State University Wolstein Center. Team 2399 had a tremendous weekend and was chosen by the Broncobots of Lee's Summit, MO to join them and the Robocards from St. Charles Prep in Columbus in the playoffs on Saturday, March 28. The alliance placed third overall, missing a shot at the final round by 3 points. In their final match, Team 2399's alliance actually beat the alliance that went on the win the whole tournament, in a remarkable 162-130 battle.

There's a still a way to see the Fighting Unicorns' programming skills in action. Click here watch the team's interview with WKYC Channel 3 anchor Russ Mitchell on March 31. Also support Team 2399's trip to St. Louis by purchasing your own Fighting Unicorns t-shirt here! Shirts are $20 apiece.

Congratulations to Team 2399 and a special thank you to our volunteer mentors who make this team a reality!

Team 2399:

Kayla Briskey ’15, Sarah Fiscarelli-Mintz, ’15 (Webmaster/Head Scout), MacKenzie Hridel ’15 (Team Captain), Jordan Harris Purpura ‘15 (Team Captain) Amanda Merritt ‘16 (Programming Lead), Melody DS Buca ’17, Mackenzie Bruce ’17, Lauren Egts ’17, Maggie Gehrlein ’17 (Mechanical Lead), Anna Hollweg ’17, Julia Immerman ’17 (Business Lead), Julia Javorsky ’17, Hanna Keyerleber ’17 (Electrical Lead), Rosalie Phillips ’17 (Safety Czar), Emma Picht ’17, Chloe Schwartz ’17, Sara Currier ’18, Kshama Girish ’18, Ishu Kottapalli ’18, Aubrey Mixon ’18, Roshni Sharma ’18, Kate Snow ’18, Anna Sobolewski ’18, Ying Ying Yang ’18, Nicole Trombetta (Faculty Advisor)

Mentors:

Chris Dickey, John Forcina, Arkady Polinkovsky, Pete Buca, Dave Egts, Lori Harris, John Keyerleber, Will Marshall, Diane Sadowski, Rahul Sharma, Anna Sklenar