Our Story
Team 56 is the result of a 14 year partnership between our Bound Brook High School and Ethicon. Our team was the first team created by Johnson & Johnson, and one of the very first FIRST Robotics teams in the state of New Jersey. ’56 was part of the four teams that organized a competition at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, which led to the establishment of the Philadelphia Regional Competition for FIRST. Bound Brook’ and Ethicon have had a long history of FIRST spirit, and continue to demonstrate our enthusiasm for FIRST through the future.
Team 56 begins early in the year with team-building activities (this year’s activity was our Bridge Construction competition) and community service events to encourage communication between the members and to familiarize the team with what robotics is like. The team-building activities help “break the ice” of the engineering processes of ‘design and build’ for new members, and they warm-up the imagination and constructivism of all the members for the Robotics season. Community service allows our team to reach out and provide our services as a group and raise awareness about FIRST Robotics and the interests for math, science, and technology.
Robotics has led to our high school's involvement with programs like Project Lead the Way, where students practically have firsthand experience as to what engineers do. The Bridge to Employment program is where students build strong futures in health care by being introduced to the broad array of careers available in the field. Bound Brook High School Robotics has also brought about the start of robotics in the local middle and elementary schools, so students can begin an interest with science, math, and technology at an even younger age.
Ethicon
Ethicon is a member of the Johnson & Johnson, Health Care Products and Pharmaceuticals family.
With 80 years of legacy, Ethicon is established on their four pillars of Research, Vision, Innovation, and Commitment with a goal of improving the quality of health care and the quality of their patients’ lives.These pillars that Ethicon has built its structure around are many of the same pillars FIRST Robotics has built itself around. There can be no better alliance, than that of Ethicon and Bound Brook High School, to achieve the pillars of FIRST Robotics. It was their intention, initially, to just start teams in FIRST’, but as they worked with us, we developed a powerful relationship with each other. The focus averted from quantity to quality, and ever since, Team 56 has been in FIRST Robotics competing in FRC and spreading FIRST’s ideals to inspire the interest of science, math, and technology to the world.
Our Mission
Team 56’s mission is to not only to spread the “Inspiration and Recognition for Science and Technology,” but to spread idealism of the pillars that represent both FIRST and Ethicon. The topics of Science and Technology are useless without the good purposes symbolized by the pillars of Ethicon and the pillars of FIRST. Our mission is to inspire others to be interested in science and technology, along with implementing the positive moral values in which they should be used.