Southcoast Team Raising Funds For Robotics Competition

FRC robotics team 5846, the SouthCoast Corsairs, are raising funds so the team can head to St. Louis for the FIRST Robotics Competition where they will face off from teams around the world.

The team is headquarted at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and features students from Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School, New Bedford High School, Dartmouth High School, Bishop Stang High School, Bishop Connolly High School, and Westport High School.

Melissa Pijon, a software engineering major at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth served as one of the team's three mentors and told WBSM's Phil Paleolgos the team's progress has been amazing.

"I could not be more proud of these students," said Pijon "seeing them go from shy high school students to confident learners in this whole thing is just amazing to witness."

The competition will feature 29,000 high school students representing 39 countries.

As he prepares for the tournament, team member and Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School student, Andrew Sullivan told said he is looking forward to seeing how teams from different countries operate.

He says they have already started making some international connections and friendships.

"I think it's going to be very interesting to see all of the different robots from different countries," said Sullivan "we already had some from, I think, two different countries reach out to us and they want to meet us there."

While the human members of the team are still here on the Southcoast, their robot, nicknamed Corbot, has already headed out to St. Louis.

Team spokeswoman Jennifer Mulcare-Sullivan said that getting Corbot from the university to the FedEx truck was no easy task.

"It wouldn't fit out one door, it couldn't go in the elevator," said Mulcare-Sullivan "the box crate is four or five feet by four or five feet, it's a 400 lbs. crate."

The FIRST Robotics Competition will take place April 27-30.

Those interesting in donating to the Southcoast Corsairs can do so through the team's GoFundMe page.

More information about the team is also available on their Facebook page.