Israeli high-school team drops out of international robotics competition held on Sabbath

The statement on why Sabbath is more important drew a long round of applause from the audience and fellow competitors.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

An Israeli team of high school students dropped out of an international robotics competition Saturday due to their observance of the Sabbath, gaining the respect of the organizers, the audience and their fellow competitors.

The TRIGON #5990 team from the AMIT Boys Junior and Senior High School in Modiin was participating in the FIRST World Championships in Houston, Texas, and made it into the playoff round – which was held after the Sabbath already began.

FIRST, which is an acronym of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an American NPO that encourages young people to be science and technology leaders by organizing mentor-based programs in robotics and other technologically-oriented areas.

One of the organizers read the team’s statement explaining the decision.

“We are a proudly dedicated group from Israel,” they said, who had worked “tirelessly” to succeed in the competition. Yet, they continued, “We are from a religiously Jewish background, and our faith is an integral part of who we are.

“Saturdays, Shabbat, hold a special significance in the Jewish faith. It is a time when we disconnect and focus on our spiritual wellbeing, our families, God, and our communities. Because of this, our team will not be present and competing during the remainder of the competition.”

The teens then invited everyone to come see their booth and wished everyone luck. After the crowd burst into a prolonged round of applause, the organizer thanked Trigon “for giving us a very important reminder of the importance of things outside of robotics.”

The Amit group was part of an “alliance” of three teams that used the robots they built to maneuver cubes and cones and drop them in lines of three in order to “charge up” a fictitious community. Part of the challenge included programming their machines to work autonomously for the first 15 seconds of the match. Since the Israeli students could not continue playing, another team was chosen in their stead.

Last year, Ha-Dream Team #3075 from Hod HaSharon was a member of the Winning Alliance of groups in the Einstein Finals Division, and team RoboActive #2096 from Dimona won the prestigious Engineering Inspiration Award.

Most of the Israeli teams made it to the playoffs in their divisions, ranking in the top tier over more than 70 teams from all over the world.

FIRST Israel was founded in 2004 in cooperation with the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. More than 25,000 students country-wide participate in more than 2,000 teams from the Jewish, Muslim, Bedouin, Christian, Druze and Circassian communities.

Israeli educationJewish sabbathrobotics