NYC Council Member Rubén Díaz Sr.
invites you to receive
Citizenship
Application
Assistance FREE
Saturday, February 23, 2019, 11 am-2 pm
For an appointment, call 646-664-9400
Bronx YMCA Glebe
Senior Center
2125 Glebe Ave
Bronx, NY 10462
For directions, call the MTA:
718-330-1234
Let our experienced lawyers and immigration
professionals help you with your application.
Minimum requirements to apply:
1. You are 18 years of age or older
2. You have lived in the United States as a green card holder
(permanent resident) for five years (or three years if married to
and living with the same U.S. citizen)
What to bring:
1. Green card and all passports used in the last five years
2. Home/school/employment history for the last five years
(or three years if married to a U.S. citizen)
3. Children’s information (date of birth, A#, addresses)
4. Marital history (information about your past spouses)
5. If you have ever been arrested, cited or given a ticket, you must
bring your certificate of disposition/MTA letter for each incident
Applicants must pay a $725 filing fee to USCIS unless they qualify for
a fee waiver. Please do not bring cash or money orders to the event.
For a detailed list of what to bring, call 646-664-9400.
More information at cuny.edu/citizenshipnow
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, F 8 EBRUARY 15-21, 2019 BTR
St. Theresa Robotics team. Photo courtesy of St. Theresa School
St. Theresa School robotics
teams earn excellent grades
BY PATRICK ROCCHIO
A Pelham Bay school has a robotics
program in its junior high that is
attracting attention and winning high
marks at competitions.
St. Theresa’s School’s two robotics
teams, one each in its seventh and
eighth grades, recently scored very
well in a local qualifi er of an international
robotics competition called the
FIRST LEGO League.
FLL uses robots, attachments and
Legos to teach elementary and middle
schoolchildren programming and coding
as they complete ‘missions’ with
the robots they build. It is an international
competition.
St. Theresa’s seventh grade team
came in third out of 33 teams from local
schools, and their eight graders took
home top honors in competition with
ten teams, said Diane Fitzgerald, a St.
Theresa Science teacher who moderates
the Robotics club.
Both grades qualifi ed for a city
championship competition being held
at CUNY City College on Saturday,
March 16 and Sunday, March 17, said
Fitzgerald.
“We are the only Catholic elementary
school in the Bronx that has a
robotics team in competition,” said
Fitzgerald, adding that the school itself
may be the only borough Catholic
school with a robotics program.
Fitzgerald attributes the success of
the two teams to their research skills
and teamwork, as well as their dedication.
“They stay after school almost every
day until 5:30 p.m. They are very dedicated,”
said Fitzgerald, adding that the
youth event came into school to work
on their robotics during their vacation
during the holidays.
Josephine Fanelli, St. Theresa
School principal, said that the fi rst robotics
team formed at the school two
years ago after the school partnered
with an organization that funded a
grant to teach the children robotics as
part of their STEM (science, technology,
engineering and mathematics) education.
The school partnered with Karen
Kaun of Makeosity, a company that
creates STEM and art curriculum for
youth.
Kaun noticed that the children had
an affi nity for robotics, said Fanelli.
The school’s robotics learning began
when the its current eighth graders
were in the sixth grade, said the
principal.
“In the summer the kids worked
with Mrs. Fitzgerald and Dr. Kaun,
and in the seventh grade they began to
compete in competitions,” said Fanelli.
“They basically have to make machinery
and robots and they have to plan
out missions – the plots they have to
take (and the tasks).”
FLL requires students to run small
robots, about the size of a brick (known
in FLL as an ‘intelligent brick’), over a
map and to program their robots to interact
and manipulate objects on the
map for two and a half minutes at a
time, said Kaun.
“St. Theresa has been killing it this
year,” said Kaun, adding that the judges
were impressed with the seventh grade
team’s robot design and the eighth
grade’s ‘core value’ of team work.
The St. Theresa Robotics team works on one of their projects.
Photo courtesy of St. Theresa School
/citizenshipnow