Top Honors

Lucas Boyle, a rising senior at Seneca Valley High School, was selected as one of this year’s FIRST Dean’s List winners from the worldwide nominations. Mr. Boyle represented his robotics team, The Giant Diencephalic BrainStem Robotic Team, which is a team consisting of members from multiple western Pennsylvania school districts, based in Baden, PA.

FIRST®, a robotics community that prepares young people for the future, brought together approximately 50,000 people from around the world as hundreds of student robotics teams put their innovation, teamwork and robotics skills to the test at the 2023 FIRST Championship, which was held April 19-22, in Houston, TX.

More than 18,000 students and 974 student robotics teams from 59 countries competed and exhibited across FIRST programs. Many FIRST LEGO League (FLL), FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams earned honors for design excellence, competitive play, research, business plans, creativity and teamwork.

“When I won the Dean’s List Award, I was shocked but also very grateful,” said Mr. Boyle. “Being one of 10 FTC winners out of the entire world and over 130,000 applicants was not something that I ever expected to happen. When they called my name, I felt a sense of pride but also responsibility. I now help to represent the tenants of FIRST and the amazing experiences that come from it. Winning this award has been a nice forum for them to recognize my technical skills and leadership in robotics that I intend to continue with for the rest of my life.”

Mr. Boyle has been active in FIRST Robotics since fifth grade and has competed in FLL, FRC and FTC. After Mr. Boyle graduates next year, he intends on going to college for engineering and would like to continue working on robotic projects or join a collegiate level robotics program.

“In terms of my future career, I am not entirely sure if I want to do something with robotics or just general engineering, but I will definitely continue to share my experience of FIRST with others,” explained Mr. Boyle. “My goal is to continue to mentor and help FIRST robotics teams, sharing the experience that I think has been the most impactful during my high school years.”

Students who earn FIRST Dean’s List Award status are great examples of student leaders who have led their teams and communities to increased awareness for FIRST and its mission and have also achieved personal engineering and technical expertise and accomplishment.