Classroom Robotics: At Morris High School in the South Bronx, it's cool to be on the robot squad!

From this morning's 'in box'... sent by Gary Israel, manager and all around "mother hen" of the Morris High School FIRST Robotics team 2TrainRobotics...

Dear Friends of Morris H.S Robotics Team,

Leading up to next year's 20th anniversary of the Morris High School Robotics Team I will be sharing stories, articles, memories and most importantly photos of the team. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

The article below was written on the 10th anniversary of the robotics team. That year the team was a New York City FIRST 2009 Semifinalists, the Philadelphia FIRST 2009 Robotics Regional Winner and in April the team traveled to Atlanta to compete in our 7th consecutive FIRST Robotics Championship competition in Atlanta.

Gary

In Pictures: Making A Robot

At Morris High School, a public school in the South Bronx, it's cool to be on the robot squad.

For 10 years, Morris High has fielded its 2TrainRobotics team to a robot competition called FIRST Robotics, a battle of minds and machines. The team has gotten financial support from alumni, friends and sponsors, including the New York Yankees.

Together, some dedicated high school students, Columbia University student mentors and passionate adults worked for six weeks to build a fully functional robot to compete in New York City's FIRST Regional Championships in early March. The Morris High's team placed in the top 12 out of 66 teams.

© Stephen Aviano for Forbes

At Work on the Robot

Morris High School students Adam Cohen and Daniel Espinal work on the robot at Columbia University's engineering lab. In addition to building the robot, FIRST team members handle the fundraising, marketing and budgeting. While the students put in long hours in the lab after school, they must also maintain a C+ average to stay on the team.

Robot Brain

This year, National Instruments donated a $5,000 robot "brain" to each of the 1,700 FIRST Robotics teams across the U.S. The brain, dubbed CompactRIO, is a controller platform that includes programming software.

© Stephen Aviano for Forbes

At the Lab

At Columbia's engineering lab, Gabriel Ruiz (right) and Henry Jones (left) work on the part of the robot that pulls the moon rocks up to the top of frame and shoots them out. Gabriel Ruiz is a senior at Morris High School. Henry Jones, an environmental engineering student at Columbia University, spent four years on a FIRST robotics team in high school and now mentors the 2TrainRobotics team. "I'll probably be involved in FIRST in someway for the rest of my life," he says.

© Stephen Aviano for Forbes

The team practices in the basement of Columbia University's engineering school, often pulling all-nighters to finish the robot. The team will go to the national FIRST championship in Atlanta in April this year.

Tan Tan

The final product: 2TrainRobotics's robot in its first competition at the N.Y. Regional Championship. Altogether, materials to build the 119-pound moon rock-throwing robot exceeded $7,000 (including the donated $5,000 "brain"). After much debate, the students named their robot Tan Tan, their term for "that's cool." Last year the team's robot was named Killer Cupcake.

Robot Driving

The students compete days before the competition to decide who drives the robot at the competition. This year, Noah Kleinberg (right) was picked as the fastest driver. Gabriel Ruiz (left), who was injured at the competition, shows that robotics can be just as rough as high school sports like wrestling or basketball.

A Game Called Lunacy

The object of the robots' challenge, called Lunacy, was to suck up as many "moon rocks" (made out of plastic strips) as possible and place them in the opposing team's goal--a trailer hitched to the back of the robot--in just over two minutes. Teams of three robots play against each other while students toss moon rocks onto the playing field from the sidelines.

Intelligence Gathering

While their robot Tan Tan wasn't competing, the students did some scouting, taking notes on their competition. FIRST reaches kids who might never have thought about how much fun or accessible science and technology can be, and it helps them think realistically about careers in science and technology.

A Victorious Round

Building robots can be life changing. Says team member Gabriel Ruiz: "FIRST made me feel better about myself. It gave me a chance to see myself in a different light. It helped me to realize I can actually be something. The team became more of a family than my family. I think everyone deserves to feel something like that."

Celebrity Support

Fred Armisen, a comedian from Saturday Night Live, showed up at the New York Regional Championship and let everyone know that he, too, is a nerd. "You are all geniuses! Give yourselves a huge cheer," shouted Armisen. Each year Kamen arranges celebrity endorsements, including in the past from Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and YouTube founder Chad Hurley.

2TrainRobotics Team

2TrainRobotics has won a number of awards, including two NASA/FIRST Robotics grants, regional championships, engineering awards and industrial design awards, and have been honored at Yankee Stadium seven years in a row. Gary Israel, the team coordinator, says one of the highlights was when Morris High School alum and former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented the team with a medal in 2002.