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Oh right, my real post:

What makes a robot these days? Is anything mechanical a robot? My first inclination would be to call this a remote-controlled car, not a robot. The same applies to a lesser extent to things such as F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Competition. I always thought a robot should have some level of artificial intelligence or (less extremely) autonomy, rather than just another mechanical device controlled by humans. Or is that just the poor science fiction I have read coming out in my assumptions?

IFI is a company separate from FIRST and Radioshack. It was formed by former engineer mentors of the FIRST robotics competition who were unhappy with the control systems that were available at the time, so they made their own and formed IFI.

Wow, you're completely wrong. Vex is a competition of the Non-profit organization FIRST (http://www.usfirst.org/). They're not aiming to "sell" to any market, only appeal to schools that don't have the money, time, or will to compete in FIRST Robotics. The robot that my team built roughly had $15,000 put into it, including parts and machining. That's expensive, unlike Vex were robotics are generally under $300. Radioshack sponsors FIRST to give them the oppertunity to do this. Buying the same parts from Radioshack for anything other than Vex might be twice as expensive. Geez, get your facts straight.

That sounds like a good thing.

I think he meant this is sad for the Atlanta Hawks. OTOH, this event had free admittance, and I haven't priced Hawks tickets lately.

But I DO agree, this is a Very Good Thing for anyone who believes science and technology are important positive driving forces in modern society, and that children and teens should be encouraged to learn about it.

Here's a relevant part of that quote again from http://usfirst.org/ of what FIRST wants to do:

"... making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today."

Is there anyone else here who agrees with that and thinks it's a Good Thing?

Reading TFA, you'd think ONLY the Lego competition was going on, but that's about 1/3 of it.

Quoting from TFCNNA:

"Joining some 25,000 high school students who compete separately, hundreds of budding mad scientists from ages 9 to 14 each hope their mechanical monsters will win an award."

The Lego League is obviously for ages 9 to 14, and the other two competitions (described below) are for the older high school students 'who compete separately.' Thus, the CNN article is all about the hundreds of younger kids, and only a bare mention of the thousands of older kids who make up to two-thirds of the competition (not to take anything away from the LEGO league).

Putting on my imaginary Reporter cap, the first thing I'll do is shamelessly steal text from the usfirst.org website:

"FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational non-profit organization, that aspires to transform culture, making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today.

FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter"

There are/were THREE things going on at this event:
The original FIRST Robotics http://www.usfirst.org/
These are given standard controllers and motors (much like R/C radios with high-power servos), and the kids have to find and make the frame, wheels, arms and other mechanical parts 'from scratch'.

FIRST LEGO League http://www.usfirst.org/jrobtcs/flego.htm
This is based on the Lego Mindstorms robotics kit(s)

Those two competitions have been going on for several years.
And this year for the first time:

FIRST Vex Robotics http://www.usfirst.org/Vex/

Vex Robotics is a kit sold at Radio Shack for $299 It's very much a complete kit with controllers, motors, wheels, frame pieces, nuts and bolts. Of course anyone can buy it but one of the requirements for the Vex teams is that they ONLY use parts from the Vex kit. IIRC, there were four Vex teams, and each team got two Vex kits to make their robot with.

Of course, the greatest shame is that I didn't go and have no excuses for not going. But at least I attend the local Robot Club meetings (and a shame there's no mention of this event on the website, especially since it's the FIRST HIT when googling for robot club):

(shameless plug)
http://botlanta.org/

Reading TFA, you'd think ONLY the Lego competition was going on, but that's about 1/3 of it.

Quoting from TFCNNA:

"Joining some 25,000 high school students who compete separately, hundreds of budding mad scientists from ages 9 to 14 each hope their mechanical monsters will win an award."

The Lego League is obviously for ages 9 to 14, and the other two competitions (described below) are for the older high school students 'who compete separately.' Thus, the CNN article is all about the hundreds of younger kids, and only a bare mention of the thousands of older kids who make up to two-thirds of the competition (not to take anything away from the LEGO league).

Putting on my imaginary Reporter cap, the first thing I'll do is shamelessly steal text from the usfirst.org website:

"FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational non-profit organization, that aspires to transform culture, making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today.

FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter"

There are/were THREE things going on at this event:
The original FIRST Robotics http://www.usfirst.org/
These are given standard controllers and motors (much like R/C radios with high-power servos), and the kids have to find and make the frame, wheels, arms and other mechanical parts 'from scratch'.

FIRST LEGO League http://www.usfirst.org/jrobtcs/flego.htm
This is based on the Lego Mindstorms robotics kit(s)

Those two competitions have been going on for several years.
And this year for the first time:

FIRST Vex Robotics http://www.usfirst.org/Vex/

Vex Robotics is a kit sold at Radio Shack for $299 It's very much a complete kit with controllers, motors, wheels, frame pieces, nuts and bolts. Of course anyone can buy it but one of the requirements for the Vex teams is that they ONLY use parts from the Vex kit. IIRC, there were four Vex teams, and each team got two Vex kits to make their robot with.

Of course, the greatest shame is that I didn't go and have no excuses for not going. But at least I attend the local Robot Club meetings (and a shame there's no mention of this event on the website, especially since it's the FIRST HIT when googling for robot club):

(shameless plug)
http://botlanta.org/

Reading TFA, you'd think ONLY the Lego competition was going on, but that's about 1/3 of it.

Quoting from TFCNNA:

"Joining some 25,000 high school students who compete separately, hundreds of budding mad scientists from ages 9 to 14 each hope their mechanical monsters will win an award."

The Lego League is obviously for ages 9 to 14, and the other two competitions (described below) are for the older high school students 'who compete separately.' Thus, the CNN article is all about the hundreds of younger kids, and only a bare mention of the thousands of older kids who make up to two-thirds of the competition (not to take anything away from the LEGO league).

Putting on my imaginary Reporter cap, the first thing I'll do is shamelessly steal text from the usfirst.org website:

"FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational non-profit organization, that aspires to transform culture, making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today.

FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter"

There are/were THREE things going on at this event:
The original FIRST Robotics http://www.usfirst.org/
These are given standard controllers and motors (much like R/C radios with high-power servos), and the kids have to find and make the frame, wheels, arms and other mechanical parts 'from scratch'.

FIRST LEGO League http://www.usfirst.org/jrobtcs/flego.htm
This is based on the Lego Mindstorms robotics kit(s)

Those two competitions have been going on for several years.
And this year for the first time:

FIRST Vex Robotics http://www.usfirst.org/Vex/

Vex Robotics is a kit sold at Radio Shack for $299 It's very much a complete kit with controllers, motors, wheels, frame pieces, nuts and bolts. Of course anyone can buy it but one of the requirements for the Vex teams is that they ONLY use parts from the Vex kit. IIRC, there were four Vex teams, and each team got two Vex kits to make their robot with.

Of course, the greatest shame is that I didn't go and have no excuses for not going. But at least I attend the local Robot Club meetings (and a shame there's no mention of this event on the website, especially since it's the FIRST HIT when googling for robot club):

(shameless plug)
http://botlanta.org/

The main FIRST competition is the FIRST Robotics Competition (I'm on team 1168 of that competition). The Competition Champions were teams 330, 67, and 503, and the Chairman's Award Winner was team 67.

And yeah, this post is pretty much on-target.

FIRST Robotics was started in 1992 by Dean Kamen and involved 28 teams in a New Hampshire high school gym. Today there's nearly 1000 teams in 30 regionals and a championship event. It is a competition for high school students.

Early in January FIRST releases the rules for the new game and the kit of parts to all of the teams. Then teams of high school students have six weeks until the robot has to be in a crate headed for the competition site. Then the teams use their robotics in a rather challenging competition.

The robots aren't your typical mindstorms robots either. The provided control system is programmed in C. FIRST provides the the motors, robot controller, speed controllers, pnumatics, etc... and even some structural components. However, teams often use their own choice of structural and drive system components (except the motors), allowing for some very custom robot designs.

The robot's maximum size (at starting position) is 38 inches x 28 inches x 60 inches, so they can get quite big.

If you want to challenge high school students, and get them excited about engineering and technology, this is the way to go.

More info is available at http://www.usfirst.org/.

The slashblurb says that the competition was hosted by LEGO, but they only give some funding. The competition is put on by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), at the same time/building as the High School Robotics competition. More information about FIRST is available at http://www.usfirst.org

FIRST is an organization that also sponsors the FIRST Lego League. In FIRST, high school teams are given six weeks to build a robot designed to play that year's game, which is unveiled at the beginning of the six weeks. Teams must design, build, and program their robots to compete.

More info at: The official FIRST site and Wikipedia

You may want to look into theFIRST robotics competition. It is a tele-robotics competion for high school students held annually. This would give you something to teach towards. There may be FIRST-specific curriculums out there already, also.

Other than that, I wouldn't try to be too ambitous. Teach basic DC/AC circuits, maybe the basics of transistors, and program some PICs or similar in BASIC.

Well I agree that you having read that article you might have gotten that impression on how it was political and all. But Ill let you know that in truth the teachers did NOT I repeat NOT build the ROV the teacher are mentors and as any mentor they share ideas. I myself attend Carl Hayden and I find it hard to belive that people think that we are not capable of creating such a thing like the ROV. Just because our school is 92% hispanic and was considered a Under Performing school dosent mean that we arent capable of building a robot. This year beeing the 4th year that the robotics club has attended the FIRST competition http://www.usfirst.org/ and thats were we get our experience from not from letting our teachers build the teams robot and for the students to take fame in. As for the Job issue it ties in with the money our school dose have programming courses but 1 hour a day for the school year dosent allow you to learn and master Java or C++ plus you might say that they can studdy at home shure they can but on what not all the students have the abillity of buying a computer all the studying will be on paper dont get me wrong all programs have to be writen first on paper but what happens when they want to test it out and no computer to try it on students just loose interest

Back when I did FIRST (formerly US FIRST) in high school, the team that MIT sponsored was consistently among the worst. There was a team in the next town over from me that was only sponsored by Key Bank that was always much better and with far less apparent technical expertise.

....reminds me of the US FIRST Robotics Competition .

The engineers did the work, but the kids and the sponsor(s) reap the benefits. This isn't much different but at least it is giving kids a place to go after school, and pushing more people into the engineering field, which is something we may not need.

FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is far superiour than any stupid robowars program. We acually spend our time to create something constructive that inspires high school kids to pursue the fields of science or engineering rather than creating robots to mindlessly destory. Why isn't there a news story on the 7 regional events out of 30 that FIRST is having all over the US??

FIRST (For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is far superiour than any stupid robowars program. We acually spend our time to create something constructive that inspires high school kids to pursue the fields of science or engineering rather than creating robots to mindlessly destory. Why isn't there a news story on the 7 regional events out of 30 that FIRST is having all over the US??

You'd think she would be involved in her school's F.I.R.S.T. robotics team but her bio has no mention of it.

For those who aren't familiar with the US FIRST Robotics Competiton, here's a quick summary.

Dean Kamen started an organization called For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) because he felt that students were not being inspired to pursue science and engineering. His usual analogy is that while we have immense respect for athletes, celebrities, and entertainers, we don't recognize engineers and scientists in the same way, and he wants to change that.

The practical implementation of this is the FIRST Robotics Competition. Each January, the kickoff from Manchester, NH is broadcast to teams across the country (and world) on NASA TV, and they find out about a new game. They also receive a kit of parts, and they then have six to seven weeks to design, build, program, practice driving, and ship a robot to play that game.

This year's game, as many are, is just complex enough that I will not try to explain it fully. Essentially, you earn points by stacking small tetrahedrons ("tetras") on the large tetra-shaped goals. There are 9 of these in a grid. You get 3 points for each tetra of your color stacked (upright) on top of a goal, and 1 point for each that is inside the goal but not stacked. Then you get 10 points for each row of 3 goals where your color is on top, and you get 10 points at the end if all three robots in your alliance (there are two alliances, red and blue, with three teams each) are in your end zone. You also receive bonus tetras (placed directly on top of the goals on your end of the field) for certain actions during autonomous mode: placing vision tetras (these have a green stripe for the camera to track) on the goals in the middle (1 bonus tetra for putting it on the side goals, 2 for the middle) and knocking down the tetras magnetically hung from the goals on your side (1 bonus tetra, and the knocked-down one stays in play; it otherwise would be removed).

The structure of the match is 15 seconds of autonomous mode, where the robots can't (electronically) receive communications, and must navigate on their own. This is made much more interesting this year by them throwing a CMUcam2 (a small serially-controllable robot vision system--quite cool!) into our bag of sensors. Then the remaining 1:45 of the match is human-controlled. Scoring is probably another "coopertition"-style deal where the winner gets 2x the loser's score or something similar to keep good teams from kicking bad teams' asses completely.

There are two Canadian competitions, and they are regionals. And Canadian teams aren't restricted to those regionals--there were two at my team's regional in Pittsburgh last year. If you won one of these competitions, you qualified for the Championship Competition (which everyone calls "nationals", even though it's not just for US teams).

The two "giftie" highschools in my hometown had extremely nerd-friendly programs. One did US FIRST robotics, and the other was the home of the venerable Ottawa Carleton Educational Space Simulation, or SpaceSim. Our motto: Filling Kids' Heads With Space. Okay, so that wasn't really our motto. But we did science education, and I got to be an "astronaut". It was beyond awesome.

-Leigh

Well Im a few years out of high school, but while I was there I did FIRST all four years, FIRST is the largest national robotics competition for high school students, and was some of the most fun I have had in my entire life. It does require a large commitment of time and resources, so it might not be for you. I went to several programming competitions run by varous state colleges and the like, and generally found them pretty boring.
The most important thing is building a relationship with teachers that are interested in whatever it is you decide to do. You might want to check around to find out if there is a school where what you have to offer will be most appreciated. For example, I went to a Magnet program for "Emerging COmputer Technology" that drew students actually interested in the feild (and willing to make sacrifices of convenience) from across the county. Lots of school systems have similiar programs, and such concentrations of interested students will make your life easier. Some schools now offer Cisco Network Academy courses and such, they might be a good place to start, invite them to tour your workplace and see a full scale deployment in action (this only works if you have a network worth showing off, but you get the idea). This will get you started towards building a relationship with the school.
If you decide to do some sort of competition, it will serve you well to make sure the students are self-selecting and want to be there for reasons beyond getting out of school for the day. Students will take any excuse for a feild trip, and once they arrive and are bored to tears they will not only learn anything but generally be disruptive. High school students will always, always act up when bored. Also, whatever task or challenge you set before them will take at least 3x longer then if you set a group of adults to do it, and that number goes up the larger the group.

If you are just interested in helping out however you can, almost all schools could benefit from professional IT help, and many programming classes are taught be reassigned math teachers who would probably welcome a guest instructor or such for the day.
Some links to get you started:
http://www.usfirst.org/
A very large and well respected robotics competition, all levels of contruction from screwed togethor wood bots to CNC precision engineered masterpieces sponsored by Fortune 500 companies. A 6 week intensive build period and my require considerable travel to competitions.
http://www.bestinc.org/
Another robotics competition, lacks the budget and professionalism of FIRST. Robots are generally poorly contructed and must be made entirely of components provided. Much lower entry cost then FIRST.
url:http://www.battlebotsiq.com/
A high-school off shoot of Battlebots, I have not competed in this and don't know much about it.

I just recently graduated from the high school which supplied some of the core members of US FIRST Team #365, the Miracle Workerz. Believe you me, that WILL get kids involved. It's an opportunity like no other for education and fun, and believe me, those guys got GIRLS. It was a privilege for me to go to prom with one of them. It was also a privilege for our head cheerleader. Nothing gets a girl's attention like offering her a ride on your robot.

No, literally. Your robot.

FIRST was founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. Its aim is to get high school kids interested and motivated about science and technology. It's a great premise. Perhaps FIRST can help you, and vice versa. By hooking up with such a sophisticated organization, you gain an incredible support mechanism, and they gain another group of evangelists.

Give them a look-see. I woujld have given anything to be on a challenge team in high school! I bet it'll be a winner, all the way around.

I agree. My science club had a lot of trouble recruiting people. One day we had a guy come to talk to us and show us a robot they made for the FIRST robotics competition and the turnout was spectacular. Unfortunately, many of the people didn't show up again, they just wanted to see a robot. I think robots interest a lot of people. I find the show BattleBots annoying because it was too commercial and tried to be like a sports show. I prefer the real nerdy competitions they showed on PBS or the Discovery channel myself. However, I saw some videos from the FIRST competition and they were much cooler than any battle robots. There is only so much you can do with a robot to destroy stuff. However, with different challenges every year, and lots of ways to go about the challenges, the FIRST competition really inspires creative thinking. I just wish I had a chance to participate in high school.

Andrew

PS: My science club is probably near-defunct now, because almost everyone who was on it was a senior. We all got really involved while juniors and competed in Science Olympiad (and did pretty well for a first year, thrown together team), but we were all busy senior year (and some of us were lazy).

I must say that getting involved in FIRST Robotics is a great way to volunteer your time. FIRST currently has over 900 teams in the US, and there are more every year. The controllers are programmed in C, so there is no lack of programming work, though a team can opt to not program them at all. The first 15 seconds of the two minute competition is completely. If you make it clear that it is not solely a geek thing, but involves tasks that most geeks wouldn't even think about (welding, assembling parts, designing chassis and drivetrain, etc.), you should have no problem getting people involved. Another good resource for FIRST is a forum at ChiefDelphi. If you decide to start a team, post there and see if there are any teams in your area willing to help you.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. The program is a life-changing, career-molding experience--and a lot of fun. In 2004 the competition will reach more than 20,000 students on over 900 teams in 27 competitions.

Yes, you will spend 6 weeks out of the year without sleep, spending all night in the shop getting the robot ready, but it's a blast!

For more information, see http://www.usfirst.org

http://www.usfirst.org/

F.I.R.S.T. Robotics competetion is a great way for local businesses to get involved with high school students by allowing them to learn about science, technology, teamwork, and sportasmanship. I participated in this program in high school and can say it changed my life - and none of it would have happened without our corporate sponsorship from a local small business in Philadelphia. The competiton itself is national with regional meets scattered around the US. I suggest finding a school in your area thats participating and help them out. Programmig is becoming a larger part of the competition and high school kids could always use help with that.

Although I'm not a highschool student (Freshman college) my school district is involved in FIRST Robotics. http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/ FIRST Robitics is a multinational program where highschool students desing, build and program a robot in six weeks. Although the program is expensive, ~$30 000, it was what inspired me to got to college.

See http://www.usfirst.org/ for FIRST Robotics, a nationwide (possibly larger) scale robotics competition with a new theme each year. Students and mentors build full size (130-ish pound) robots to complete a specific task (more accurately, play a specific game). My school is team 422, the Mech Techs, and we are already excited about the robotics season coming up in January. We are also trying to secure funding (entry fees run high) but it is absolutely worth it.

I have to disagree. I just left high school about six months ago to move on to Drexel University and when I left, one of the greatest things in our school was the US First Robotics competitions (http://www.usfirst.org). Many many people in our school were amazed by how the robot worked and many kids got involved in it. It's a great thing for high school students to do and they get to meet some really cool people in the process.

I volunteered as a technical inspector at a regional FIRST Robotics (http://www.usfirst.org/) competition last year.

It involved a few hundred enthusiastic students (and, amazingly, a few hundred enthusiastic fans).

The actual project was pretty well thought out for high school students, i.e., it was pretty simple to get *something* working, but there was plenty of opportunity for scale up to more complex designs to keep it interesting. Some circuits, some programming, some mechanical design.. really something for everybody.

I felt like it was a pretty good experience for the students, and it has a pretty low entry barrier ($$$) for corporate sponsorship. Depending on the level of interest, you can sponsor individual teams or whole competitions, and "expert" volunteers are alwats needed.

Doesn't run the whole IT gamut, but it's been really successful, and needs more sponsored teams to scale up...

That sounds like the FIRST Robotics program.

I saw a competition on the local cable access channel. It was highschoolers competeing and it was at least as exciting as battle bots ever was. Some of them seem to have had some pretty complex behaviors programmed. At anyrate they were interested and enjoying themselves (the students, not sure about the robots)

Actually, you might find that robotics is becoming more popular (and shows like Battlebots prove this point). When I was in high school, and it wasn't that long ago, we started a robotics club. It was a team for the nationally run FIRST Robotics (http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/) competition. Geeky as it sounds, it got a lot of student interest . Not just the team, but even the stereotypical jocks were impressed and came to events.

Even now I get to help out my old high school team as they continue to compete year to year.

Being a highschool student involved with science\tech I would suggest becoming a mentor for a FIRST Robotics team in your area. It's a great way to help the kids, and the community in general. the website:http://www.usfirst.org/

They may be BEST but they're not FIRST

NASA does a ton of incredibly good things to encourage science and technology.

They supported over 30 FIRST teams when I was in FIRST - I would bet they support more now. Look at the link, it's an incredible program. If possible, get your company or school involved in it. FIRST was one of the best experiences of my career.

Note: FIRST stands for:

For
Inspiration and
Recognition of
Science and
Technology

I, like many people, really enjoyed Battlebots. So much in fact, I built one just like much of America thought about doing. What drives the fascination with Americans and the desire to build/tinker things that are capable of destroying each other? Other robotic competitions like FIRST are about completing tasks or doing something constructive (which I suspect is driven by a different motivation) while the more sensational tournaments were about robots killing robots. Is this just the desire to compete in 'left brain' individuals, or something else? And what makes competitons like Battlebots and Robotwars appeal to the American public?

You can also get all the recorded matches www.soap108.com.

If you're at the Georgia Dome right now reading this (we get an open wireless network), watch out for team 486, the Positronic Panthers, in the Newton Division. Also, team 217, you might want to secure your private network and put passwords on your administrator accounts.

http://www.usfirst.org/

I think the Lego league sounds fun.

MINDSTORMS have become really hard to find. Do any retail outlets still carry them, or are we just left with the Lego website?

How about a link that works

Does it disturb anyone how much effort is put into building robots designed for distruction? I mean I understand building robots that solve puzzles, and robots that overcome obstacles, but the idea of designing robots primarily for violence kind of bothers me.

Does it disturb anyone how much effort is put into building robots designed for distruction? I mean I understand building robots that solve puzzles, and robots that overcome obstacles, but the idea of designing robots primarily for violence kind of bothers me.

I'm a mentor for a FIRST Robotics team in Dublin, OH. The robot must score points either through grabbing a bar that's 10 feet in the air (the max height of the robot is 5ft), or pushing kickballs into a bin from which human players can pick them up and shoot them. It may not sound as impressive as the robots in the ROBOlympics, but we had six weeks from the time we learned of this year's goal to when our robot had to be done.

If you're interested in the ROBOlympics but for whatever reason can't travel to it, there should be a FIRST Regional Event near you (this weekend there's one in Brentwood, NY, Hartford, CT, Sacramento, CA, Duluth, GA, Annapolis, MD, and Detroit, MI). There's more for the next several weekends as well. There's also a Championship Event in Atlanta from April 15-17.

I'm a mentor for a FIRST Robotics team in Dublin, OH. The robot must score points either through grabbing a bar that's 10 feet in the air (the max height of the robot is 5ft), or pushing kickballs into a bin from which human players can pick them up and shoot them. It may not sound as impressive as the robots in the ROBOlympics, but we had six weeks from the time we learned of this year's goal to when our robot had to be done.

If you're interested in the ROBOlympics but for whatever reason can't travel to it, there should be a FIRST Regional Event near you (this weekend there's one in Brentwood, NY, Hartford, CT, Sacramento, CA, Duluth, GA, Annapolis, MD, and Detroit, MI). There's more for the next several weekends as well. There's also a Championship Event in Atlanta from April 15-17.

I'm a mentor for a FIRST Robotics team in Dublin, OH. The robot must score points either through grabbing a bar that's 10 feet in the air (the max height of the robot is 5ft), or pushing kickballs into a bin from which human players can pick them up and shoot them. It may not sound as impressive as the robots in the ROBOlympics, but we had six weeks from the time we learned of this year's goal to when our robot had to be done.

If you're interested in the ROBOlympics but for whatever reason can't travel to it, there should be a FIRST Regional Event near you (this weekend there's one in Brentwood, NY, Hartford, CT, Sacramento, CA, Duluth, GA, Annapolis, MD, and Detroit, MI). There's more for the next several weekends as well. There's also a Championship Event in Atlanta from April 15-17.

Karate can be helpful, but not for everyone. I am currently in the same situation, however, I am lucky enough to go to a large school where I can literally become invisible to avoid teasing/bullying. I haven't been picked on since middle school. The only classes I'm really comfortable in are my technology classes (and I'm a girl - it's hard to fit here too!), so I've made my extracurricular fit me. My high school has a FIRST robotics team. It's great - everyone works super hard to uild and design a robot in 6 weeks, then we get to go to Regionals and some people get to go to Nationals! For someone who may be uninterested in sports or other activities, this could allow him to be with other people that share his interests. The competitions are great! It's like a rock concert, literally, with out the drinking and fights and for geeks. Even if he's not so interested in robots, as I am not (but am more interested now after 2 years), there are other things you can do. The robot is programmed in C and there's a seperate smaller competition for a 3D animation built with 3D Studio Max. I have to say, this is the best experience of high school so far. I don't quite fit at school yet, but I've made friends that might pick on me for being nerdy, but I can pick on them back :-P

I'm not sure if you're thinking about Lego Mindstorms, which is a graphical language. (You drag blocks together to form a flow chart-esque diagram of the program.) You could also tell them about the FIRST Lego League, which is a yearly contest where students are given a challenge and have to build and program a Lego robot to follow it.

I know in fifth grade I would have soaked up any language you could have shown me, but my account on Slashdot proves most people would do the opposite. If you have a while, you could show the fifth graders how to write a rock, paper, scissors game, but you've gotta have a short-range goal for them that is worth the effort, or it won't be fun.

Frankly, I'm surprised at all the negative reaction to the Segway... it's very innovative, compact, somewhat cheap, enviro-safe, etc. ... And yet you get the mommy-types bitching about it promoting laziness, dangerous on sidewalks, etc. So nay-sayers, correct my misunderstanding: how exactly will the world be worse if Segways become massively popular?

I actually agree with you about the various merits of the Segway, yet I can say I abso-fucking-lutly hate it. Not because of what it is, but because of what it was made out to be. And I suspect my reaction is the same as many people, especially us /.ers.

Personally, I only think good can come from the Segway and future rivals going into widespread use. I mean, at the very least it isn't really going to ever hurt anything even if they all fall by the side as a technological curiosity. However, I'm pissed because of the hope I had. I remember in the months before the Segway came out, it was hyped as IT. It was going to more or less revolutionize some major facit of modern life, if not all of it. The inventor, Dean Kamen, is a very intelligent man, and if anyone could live up to his own predictions for a device of his design, it would be him. So when he said stuff like, "It will change the way cities are built. They will be built around IT." (Or something like that, he did say it would forever change city design) I really believed him, and I think so did most of us, hence the hatred for the Segway. I personally was thinking, "Ok, it sounds REALLY far-fetched, but what if this is something really bad ass? What if this is cheap and easy nuclear fusion, teleportation, a viable personal air transport, (or any of a hundred other things I've only dreamed of)." IT really got my hopes up. And then the big day of the unveiling comes up and, anxiously I awaited, only to find out IT_IS_A_FUCKING_SCOOTER!? This had to be, by far, the absolute biggest let down of a product in the (at least recent) history of mankind. After months of hype and hope, we get an advanced toy/novelty that's over priced any damn way.

So really, I think the deep, intense hatred of the Segway is not a product of the product, but rather a product of the crushed dreams brought on by the hype of the product. Had we only known Steve Jobs' initial reaction, I think the let down may have been softer and the backlash much easier.