About 423 SEC

As we get ready to start the 2007 competition year, we have about 40 student members and seven adult members of the team. Our students range from 8th grade to 12th grade since Springfield Township High School is a five year high school. Forty students is a bit too many to have building one FIRST robot, so we have added VEX to our offerings this year. We will be competing in the Penn State Firefighting Robot competition with our VEX as well as the FRC competition with the "big robot".

In the 2006 competition year, we climbed a ramp. At our first competition our robot was not even finished. We worked hard in Pittsburgh to work out the kinks in our robots design and to get the team strategy from concept to reality. By the end we were playing a good defensive game and we were chosen by a high scoring team as an alliance member. We didn't win, but we learned a lot about the Aim High game. We went to the Drexel competition with a little experience and high hopes. We learned even more but did not win. We tinkered with the robot and by the time we entered an exhibition match in Scranton over the summer we finally won (first place, too)! Over the non-official fall season we entered and did very well at the following competitions:

  • Duel on the DE - Champions
  • North Brunswick Eruption - 2nd place
  • Ramp Riot - semi-finals

SEC stands for Springfield, Eastern and Cheltenham. These three schools came together to create 423 SEC. The 2007 season is our second, but we do have some history...

Springfield Township High School had a FIRST Robotics team for seven years. The number was 487, and the team name was changed almost every year.

Cheltenham started a FIRST Robotics Team for the 2004 season. They were Team 1455. While looking for sponsors and mentors, they formed an alliance with Eastern Center for Arts and Technology, the local vocational school. NEC (NASA, Eastern, Cheltenham) Robotics was formed in 2005. With a NASA grant and the combined resources of Cheltenham High School and Eastern Center for Arts and Technology, they competed at Annapolis that year.

In 2006 NEC became SEC (Springfield, Eastern, Cheltenham) as we added Springfield Township High School's Robotics Team to the mix. We now have several experienced mentors and engineers, the use of the facilities at our local vocational school and about 40 student members.