NDCL's steadily growing robotics team dramatically improved its performance over last year by finishing 13th in a field of 28 tough teams from throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania at the FIRST Tech Challenge Qualifying Tournament at Cuyahoga Community College East earlier this month.

The FIRST Tech Challenge requires teams of students to design, build, test, and program autonomous and driver-operated robots that must perform a series of tasks in head-to-head competition with other teams.

Celebrating the team's growth and performance are (front, left to right) sophomores Kyle Hoffmann and Jacob Woodhouse, freshman Allison Daher, sophomore Gabriel Williford, and junior Alex Echanove; (middle) freshman Pierce Thomas, juniors Jimmy Romano and Ashley Champa, and adviser math teacher Mrs. Ashley Kelm; and (rear) junior Sam Canter, adviser science teacher Mr. Nathan Smith, and sophomores Brendan Welsh, Andrew Kresic, and Frank Newsome.