HORSEPOWER
4991
Who We Are
Horsepower, team 4991, is a FIRST Robotics Competition team based in Chartiers Valley High School in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. The team consists of students (grades 9-12) and mentors who all have a wide range of technical backgrounds and experience.
We are a team dedicated to building students’ engineering skills while inspiring a lifelong love of STEM.
Our History
Team Horsepower 4991 was founded in November 2013. Organized by Jeff Macek, one of the teachers that brought “Project Lead the Way” to the high school, he discovered that FIRST Robotics supports his belief in the value of quality STEM education.
During our rookie season, Horsepower was able to advance to the FIRST World Championship after winning the Rookie Inspiration award, Rookie All-Star Award, and being the highest ranked rookie team in the FIRST Pittsburgh Regional 2014. Mr. Macek has since retired from mentoring and Mr. Jeff Radzanowski has stepped up to become lead mentor.
Learn more about our past robots below
More Than Just Robots
Community Outreach - Primary School Visits
Horsepower is a team that focuses on more than just robots. The team also commits to outreach within the community. Chartiers Valley Primary Schools holds an extended day program for students who cannot get picked up at the normal time. During this time, students get to enjoy many different activities and have been visited by the team on multiple occasions. Team members talking about design process and encouraged kids to build their own robots. the team also demonstrated their robot for the group and gave each child an opportunity to drive the robot for themselves.
Community Outreach - Sponsor Brunch
Horsepower hosted a Sponsor Brunch to thank their sponsors and local community members for all of their generous support. Team members talked about FIRST ideals and what they learned through their year of being Horsepower member. Guests got the opportunity to see Horsepower’s Infinite Recharge robot progress. They also got the chance to operate Flash, Horsepower’s 2018 FIRST Power Up robot.
Advocacy
In the summer of 2018 six members of Horsepower went down to Washington DC to advocate for STEM funding in schools. The members shared their FIRST experiences with different congressmen’s staff and got to talked to Congressman Conor Lamb directly. The Horsepower members worked with members from the FIRST team Girls of Steel, demonstrating the community that is FIRST and what the program stands for.