PASCACK VALLEY—Love’s come calling on rugged rollers and rubber tank treads, the device holding you close at heart through infrared sensing optics. You will, no doubt, comply.
Well, maybe that’s overstating it. You’re certainly cheerfully, warmly invited to support Pascack
Pi-oneers FIRST Team 1676 in its annual Valentine’s Day Food Drive, this year Friday, Feb. 9 to Wednesday, Feb. 21, as so many others have.
The needed food and supplies will be donated to the Hillsdale Helping Hand Food Pantry and the Tri-Boro Food Pantry in Park Ridge.
- Donations sought: canned/non-perishable food, personal care items, and baby care items.
- Donation locations: Hillsdale ShopRite; Hillsdale Kings supermarket; the lobbies of the Hillsdale, River Vale, and Montvale public libraries; and the lobbies of Pascack Valley High School and Pascack Hills High School.
- You can contact piparents@team1676 to arrange a donation pickup, if that’s more convenient.
The team tells Pascack Press it created and constructed two food donation bins in partnership with ShopRite of Hillsdale “to provide receptacles for the generous customers who continue to donate.”
Team members retrieve and deliver the donated food bi-weekly. Since summer 2022, store customers have donated more than 3,500 pounds of food, according to a team fact sheet. The donation bins are inside the store, at the exit. The team also donated a food donation bin to Kings, near the exit.
“Our team is committed to helping those in our community who are experiencing food insecurity. We, as a team, created the Valentine’s Day Food Drive to support local pantries and inspire food donations throughout the winter,” Treshan Nilaweera, Pascack Pi-oneers co-CEO, tells Pascack Press.
Winning awards, learning skills, changing lives
Pascack Pi-oneers FIRST Team 1676 is a force of some 67 student members from PVHS and PHHS. Now celebrating its 20th season, the team competes in FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), putting its robot through grueling paces against other talented teams from far and wide.
The build season begins the first Saturday in January and continues to the end of February, during which time the Mechanical Division begins designing and building its robot.
The team says its Management, Outreach & Design Division writes award submissions, creates graphics, and plans team publications, creates the animation submission, produces the team video, updates the website, and creates apps.
Pascack Pi-oneers FIRST Team 1676 competes in the FIRST Mid-Atlantic District, which is composed of New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware. It participates in the Mount Olive event and the Montgomery event initially, looking to qualify for the District Championship.
We’re told the Pi-oneers have pre-qualified for the 2024 FIRST World Championship by earning the 2023 Engineering Inspiration Award Johnson Division at the World Championship in Houston.
FIRST says it “celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization and community.”
The program is heavily invested in international outreach, as well: 1676 mentors teams in South Africa, Nigeria, Haiti, Brazil and Taiwan.
And it’s created and designed a website, Ready, Set, Speak! (readysetspeak.org), which “uses verbal imitation to help children with autism and speech apraxia pronounce basic sounds and words. The website is translated into Spanish and is being translated into French thanks to a new mentorship with a FIRST team in Haiti. The team is proud to partner with the French Honor Society at PVHS and French teacher Mrs. DelGiudice, who assisted the effort.”
The team also partners with the PHHS Medical Club to host an annual Red Cross Blood Drive.
For more information about Team 1676, visit team1676.com. To sponsor Team 1676, write piparents@team1676.com. You can learn much more on the team’s social media platforms: Facebook @pascackpioneers, Twitter @FRCTeam1676, @Team1676Safety, Instagram @frcteam1676 @frcteam1676safety, and YouTube Team1676.