Meet Team 533, the PSIcotics from Lindenhurst Senior High School

On Saturday, April 15, the PSIcotics visited the Lindenhurst Memorial Library in honor of National Robotics Week! The Team was founded in 2001 and is in its 23rd competition season.
The students demonstrated last year's robot, Helios, for an interactive demonstration thrilling interested library patrons. The Team showed the previous year's robot because Zeus, the 2023 entrant, is already in Houston, Texas, awaiting the Team's arrival at FIRST Championships. FIRST Championships will have over 600 teams from across the world competing, with an expected 25,000 attendees.
Team 533, the PSIcotics from Lindenhurst Senior High School, are organized through FIRST, a non-profit organization that challenges students at different education levels to build robots. The Team competes in FIRST's high school program, known as FIRST Robotics Competition, where they are tasked with building a brand new robot each year to accomplish new tasks in a game designed by FIRST. Team 533 made Zeus, a robot tasked with placing cones and cubes onto pegs and shelves and balancing on a large scale at the end of the match.
The Team qualified for FIRST Championships after winning the Long Island Regional #2 at Hofstra University in March. This was the Team's first regional win since 2001 (rookie year), but they have received numerous awards for their robots, business program, safety program, and outreach efforts in the past. They have been regional finalists numerous times before and participated in the Championships in 2018.
Team 533's Build President and robot driver, Kali Nilsen, was awarded the Dean's List Finalist Award at the Long Island Regional #2, recognizing student leaders who have led their teams and communities to increase awareness for FIRST and its mission. These students have also achieved personal technical expertise and accomplishment. As the Regional's Dean Lists Award Finalist, she will now go on to compete at the Championships to be a Dean's List Winner. The Team's Vice President and Operator, Carys, placed as a Dean's List Semi-Finalist (which will not progress to the Championships but is a great accomplishment).
Anthony Castello, the Team's mentor and a significant contributor to this article, is seeking assistance on behalf of the Team, "The GoFundMe can be accessed here, which will help us cover the $25,000 cost to travel to the Championships," Anthony reports. You can follow that link for other donation information and links to access the Team's social media.
The PSIcotics will compete at the Championships from Wednesday, April 19, to Saturday, April 22. Anyone interested in watching the live stream of the matches can follow social media for the schedule and link information. No donation is too great or small, as we support our students! https://gofund.me/e570c185