Cybersonics Tech Team 103 Honored in Harrisburg

Over the past twen­ty years, Team 103 has achieved a num­ber of awards and received a myr­i­ad of recog­ni­tions.  The team is a proud recip­i­ent of the Chairman’s Award in 2004, giv­en by Mr. Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST.  It is the high­est hon­or giv­en to a team by the FIRST Organization. Most recent­ly, the team received the Gracious Professionalism Award the Entrepreneurship Award dur­ing the FIRST World Championships in Detroit.

The team began in 1997 at Palisades High School with two com­mit­ted teach­ers, Mr. and Mrs. Beck, and a small but ded­i­cat­ed group of stu­dents and men­tors. The team found a way to fund its inau­gur­al FIRST sea­son through a gen­er­ous dona­tion. Successfully prepar­ing a robot for a com­pe­ti­tion and com­plet­ing an ani­ma­tion entry were both a part of that ini­tial year as well as attend­ing region­al com­pe­ti­tions. Thus, the FIRST “bug” had bit­ten the Upper Bucks County, Pennsylvania school district.

Since it’s incep­tion, Cybersonics has built and sus­tained last­ing busi­ness and per­son­al rela­tion­ships with all of its val­ued com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. This includes men­tors and stu­dents, cor­po­rate spon­sors, local con­trib­u­tors, par­ents, and alumni.

Through these strong rela­tion­ships, the team is able to fos­ter a full cir­cle expe­ri­ence, where for­mer stu­dents gain intern­ships and even­tu­al­ly jobs through busi­ness­es who have either devel­oped con­nec­tions or pre­vi­ous­ly spon­sored the team. Those stu­dents then return to men­tor the cur­rent team. This cre­ates an enor­mous net­work of STEAM dri­ven com­pa­nies, stu­dents, and men­tors who help cat­a­pult Cybersonics and the com­mu­ni­ty into the future.

Each year Team 103 rais­es over $50,000 to sup­port their involve­ment in region­al and nation­al com­pe­ti­tions.  To become a spon­sor for the team, please con­tact Brent Jones, Advisor