First State Robotics, Inc. (FSR), in a unique partnership with the Delaware literacy organization Success Won’t Wait, Inc., collected over 7,000 lbs. of used books as part of the annual Miracle of Reading Education Book Drive at the Duel on the Delaware robotics competition in October 2006. The third annual Miracle of Reading Education Book Drive figures represent a dramatic increase over the 2005 figures of 1,700 lbs. of books.

The Duel on the Delaware event showcases the engineering abilities of approximately 350 high school students from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia in an annual robotics competition. And in addition to building working robots, the 24 teams collected books for the third annual community service competition.

The winning team, Chuck #84, from Towanda, Pennsylvania collected over 4,000 lbs. of books for the competition. The team received the 2006 Community Service trophy and a check for a $100 refund of their $200 robotics competition entry fee.

Although the books have not yet been completely counted, a preliminary estimate based on random sampling indicates that between 12,000 and 13,000 books were collected by the teams.

Founded in 2002, Success Won’t Wait, Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit literacy organization based in Wilmington, Delaware. Want to learn more about Success Won’t Wait’s literacy projects, how to donate used books in Delaware, or volunteer your time? Click on the About Us tab to learn more.

Read now, because success won’t wait!