The Saint Patrick High School Robotics Team (STRIKER) will compete in the Indiana Robotics Invitational in Indianapolis on July 21, 2006. The STRIKER team earned their invitation with a strong performance in the 2006 FIRST Midwest Regional in March. The team was a member of an alliance that finished in third place overall, and they took home the Imagery Award. Seven students and recent graduates from Saint Patrick: Anthony Preston, David Shugru, Matt Jurek, Shane Liput, John Gurnis, Jeremy Schultz, and Frank Gullo will travel to Indianapolis for the competition.

The Imagery Award that STRIKER captured at the FIRST Midwest Regional celebrates attractiveness in engineering and outstanding visual aesthetic integration of the machine and team appearance. The STRIKER theme this year was “The Blues Brothers” for both the robot and the team. Team members dressed like brothers Jake and Elwood Blues from the 1980 film, in dark suits, sunglasses and hats. When asked why they chose “The Blues Brothers” theme, long time engineering mentor, Ed O’Connor stated, “I am always trying to get students to wear safety goggles. At a previous competition, I saw a team with dark safety glasses on. Everyone had then on, and they looked cool. This sparked “The Blues Brothers” idea.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. This year’s game is called “Aim High.” The object of the game is to shoot balls into two corner goals, and one center goal. The competition shows students that the technological fields hold many opportunities and that the basic concepts of science, math, engineering and invention are exciting and interesting.

STRIKER started at Saint Patrick High School in 1997. The FIRST Program was brought to Saint Patrick by alumnus Ray Kedzior, president of Lodan Electronics. Lodan Electronics, Motorola, and Craftsman sponsored STRIKER that first year. Lodan sponsored the team for five more years. Since then, Saint Patrick has sponsored the team.