FIRST Robotics Competition Starts Today

cscx writes: "Today is the kickoff day of the 2002 FIRST Robotics Competition. For those of you that don't know what FIRST (Dean Kamen, Segway, IT) is, it's an organization meant to interest high-school students in science and engineering by giving them 6 weeks to build a complete functioning robot. (By the way, FIRST is what most likely inspired BattleBots) Teams, although they require funding to pay for the kits, receive many different mechanical and electrical (the programmable control system kicks ass! :) parts in the kits, along with full copies (donated by the companies) of Autodesk Inventor, Character Studio, 3D Studio Max, and Reactor, as well as Microsoft Office XP, Frontpage, and Project. There is a live webcast of the kickoff, with an unveiling of the game at 11:00 EST." Update: 01/05 16:15 GMT by T : Here's a link to the webcast information page; the webcast is available in WMF and RealMedia formats, and will be archived as RealMedia.

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Hints About the Game

[cscx]

Although the game will be kept a secret till 11 AM EST, they have unveiled some hints:

1. The kickoff is taking place in a hockey rink
2. Playground balls have been 'thrown' across the stage
3. Basketball-lookalike balls have been thrown onto the stage as well
4. Some sort of octagonal movable cart with PVC pipe extending into the air (looks like a type of goal) was mysteriously wheeled onto the stage...

They have said that there will be more room for 'roughing' in this year's game... roughing, one of the most fun part of the competitions, had been seriously downplayed in last year's competition.

Dean also said that Disney is in some super-secret marketing scheme with the Segways to "make them available more quickly..." with something to do with the Regional and National competions. It will be unveiled in a few weeks.