Stuyvesant Receives Million Dollar Donation for New Robotics Lab

The Stuyvesant High School Alumni Association received a $1 million donation from alumni brothers Edwin Lin (’04) and Alfred Lin (’90) for a new robotics lab on the fourth floor. Construction is set to begin next April and finish over the summer in preparation for the new robotics season.

Robotics Coaches Joe Blay and James Lonardo, along with parents Ellen Hartman and Richard Leung, were crucial in organizing the logistics for the setup of the new lab. Alumni Association President Soo Kim, Executive Director Sarita Prakash, and Assistant Principal of Chemistry and Physics Scott Thomas also contributed to the progress of the lab over the summer.

The donation coincides with the start of the “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” (FIRST) robotics preseason and the reality of a hefty price tag. “FIRST Robotics Competition teams always have a lot of unavoidable expenses. One competition alone can cost over $5,000 with registration fees and transportation. We also have to pay for tools, machinery, and everything else we need to build a new robot each year,” sophomore and Robotics member Nicole Press said. “This donation will help us with some of that so we can continue to build and develop our robots.”

The robotics team has been enjoying a number of recent successes, including a 17-0 win at the International Robotics Invitational over the summer in Qianjiang, China. Despite the team’s victories, however, a number of robotics members have expressed concern over the team’s current resources. “We have [...] 100 members, [...] and it gets really tight. People have to work in hallways; we have to go to other classrooms,” Blay said.

Not only will this donation open up a new lab for the team, but it will also provide newer technology for the robotics team, which will create a much safer environment for the students. “We're going to be able to fabricate parts a lot faster. [...] Because we were working with these old machines, it [took] a while, and it's also honestly just safer to have these new machines,” Blay said.

Members of the robotics team agreed that the new equipment will open many more opportunities for the robotics team. “The renovation will improve our workflow. Many of the processes that we do now, such as milling, can be automated, allowing us to iterate more and improve faster. We hope that with a new space, we can help our members see their creations come to life,” junior and Engineering Department Vice President Eric Chen said.

Team members aided in the process of deciding what new equipment the team should purchase. “We're talking to robotics members about what machines they might like to use. Some of the machines we're looking at getting—one of them's a CNC router [computer numerical control router; used to cut out templates onto a hard material] and another one's a laser cutter [...]—are machines that members of the robotics team specifically are very excited about getting to use. They even did some research to help me pick out the machines,” Blay said.

Blay hopes the donation will help expand the interest of robotics throughout Stuyvesant. “Hopefully we get more classes in here, because my dream is that when we have more than just me as a robotics teacher, we [will] have more robotics teachers [and] we [will] have more robotics classes so that any kid who wants to take robotics can,” Blay said.

The donation marks a new chapter for the robotics team, one where Blay can see his hopes for the robotics team start to play out. “Getting this funding to really make this an awesome place for all the students who are in here, it was [...] unbelievable,” he said.