FRC 1635 · EST. 2005 NEWTOWN HS · ELMHURST, QUEENS SEASON 2026 — REBUILT

Six weeks. One crate. One robot.

Every January FIRST hands us a rulebook and a box of parts. Six weeks later a 120-pound machine rolls off the shop floor at Newtown High School. This is the twenty-first winter we have done it.

0Rookie season
0Seasons run
0On the roster
6wkBuild window
[ Mission ]Build robots. Build engineers. Teach a public high school in Queens to weld, wire, code and lead — against a deadline that does not move.
§ 01 — Who we are

A robotics team that happens to be a public high school.

Newtown High School sits in Elmhurst, a neighbourhood where the students collectively speak dozens of languages. Every winter a chunk of them spend their nights over a CAD model, a soldering iron and a half-built drivetrain.

There is no tryout. Freshmen who have never held a drill end the season running a mill, flashing a RoboRIO, or standing at the field wall as drive team. The robot is the excuse; the engineers are the point.

The full roster
SET SHOP PHOTOS IN APPEARANCE → CUSTOMIZE
IN THE SHOP
SET BUILD PHOTOS IN APPEARANCE → CUSTOMIZE
BUILD SEASON
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THE CREW
§ 02 — The machine

Meet AJ.

Custom six-wheel base, compliant-roller intake, two-stage elevator and a flywheel launcher. Drawn in CAD, cut on our own mill, tuned until the last hour before load-in.

Every subsystem starts as plywood and zip-ties.

Week two of build season the shop fills with prototypes that mostly do not work. The two or three that survive get toleranced, machined and bolted to a frame.

Specs, CAD and the exploded view
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FIG.01 — 2026 COMP BOT “AJ”
DriveTank · 6WDBelt-in-tube, centre drop
MotorsNEO brushlessPaired per side
LauncherFlywheelTwin wheel, tuned hood
CodeJava · WPILibAuto routines + vision
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NYC REGIONAL · THE ARMORY
§ 04 — Who pays for it

A season costs more than a school budget covers.

Registration, raw stock, machining, replacement motors and a bus to the Armory. These partners close the gap.

Arsenal New York, title sponsor
TITLE SPONSOR — ARSENAL · NEW YORK

Their logo goes on the bumper. Their name goes in every match.

Sponsorship at any level goes straight into parts, registration and travel. We will send the packet the same day you ask for it.

See the partners
§ 05 — On the record

Twenty-one winters, one Queens public school.

2005

Rookie season

Team 1635 fields its first robot — the start of an unbroken run out of Newtown High School.

'05 → '26

21 straight seasons

Twenty-one consecutive years of designing, building and competing every single winter.

Home

NYC Regional

Our home event runs at the Fort Washington Avenue Armory under the NYC FIRST banner.

Roster

25 students

Mechanical, electrical, programming, design and business — plus faculty and engineer mentors.