News Brief: Students Show They Can Hack It

NYIT School of Interdisciplinary Studies and Education partnered with TeenHacks LI to introduce Long Island high school students to the Dexter reconfigurable robot arm. Held in the Innovation Labs at the NYIT-Long Island (Old Westbury, N.Y.) campus, the hackathon included presentations by Interim Dean Christian Pongratz, M.Arch., NYIT students, and executives from Haddington Dynamics, makers of the highly customizable device. The day began with an introduction to the technology used to program the robotic arm, followed by a quick lunch before the young coders broke up into small groups to discuss potential uses for the device.

“In the end, some of the amazing ideas included using Dexter to help build the foundations of a building, track the stars in the sky by countering the movement of the Earth, and help people with disabilities get around,” said Wesley Pergament, co-direction and founder of TeenHacks LI.