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.

Comments

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.

There's a lego mindstorms league too

[miradu2000]

I helped First test this out, but now it seems to have gone international. First Lego League International . It's pretty cool - here though the challanges are known before when building your robot, and you are giving a Lego Mindstorms kit and can use your own components. It's mainly for late elementry or jr.high school - but it can be mentered by anyone. It was a LOT of fun when I did it except the other team destroeyd our robot...

What They Really Learn

[DeadBugs]

My company does this every year. And of course it's supposed to be a few of our employees overseeing the High School students while they build the robot. What actually happens is the Engineers from my company argue over the design and concept until the last minute. Then they work long hours near the end of the deadline to finish it. The kids get bored, the Non-Engineers from my company to most the work and we get our butts whipped at the competition. Although they may not learn much about robotics, they are getting a first rate education in office politics, theory over implementation and other great office battles not taught in any college. Of course they do get a free trip to Disney World.

Re:Early Introduction to ENG fields == Good;

[chialea]

You have a point, but as someone who has participated in this more than once, it's a rather idealistic one. Most teams are actually run by the engineers: design, construction, programming, everything. Students are relegated to cheerleaders during the competition. And General Motors isn't the only offender. When my team made it to the semi-finals, most teams were shocked, simply becasue we were not engineer-built. (we had some engineers, mostly from Xerox PARC, but they were mainly there in a supervisory capactiy -- as in "there must be an adult in the shop" and to conduct design reviews) I realize that not all of the teams have the necessary background for this sort of work, but it really isn't teaching them much of anything. It's tolerated becasue "they might learn something, and that's better than nothing", which has the effect of discouraging other teams from designing and building their own robots.

As for females, I was one of them. You will see women on these teams, but most often as cheerleaders, on both the engineer-built and the student-built teams. I'm not making any statements about who chose that role for them, simply noting that there are very few women who are, for example, drivers or part of the pit crews. And if you are part of the pit crew, people from OTHER TEAMS will not pay attention to you and push you out of the way in an effort to look at your robot (information gathering, not real curiosity). I simply hope they don't treat their own members like that.

And it's not that the companies donate kits. They donate money (part of which goes to pay the entry fee, and if you pay the entry fee, you get the kit -- which is NOT all the materials you need); they donate engineer's time; they donate use of their shops.

Lea

For those interested in the parts

[olin01]

For anyone interested in a very basic overview of the parts (possibly below the level of slashdot geeks...), Olin College created a tutorial for new teams at http://first.robotics.olin.edu. Right now, the college's connection seems to be overwhelemed; a mirror is at http://www.logicalrealism.org/first/. It also includes some of the systems discussed in the kickoff, namely the light-sensor tracker and a thrower.

For the Uninformed and the Nay-Sayers

[LightForce3]

As a former FIRST team member, (Go Team 85! Go BOB!) I can say without reservation that this program is excellent. It does just what it was created to do: it inspires students to pursue careers in science and technology.

As many of you probably realize, there's much, much more that goes into a team's season that simply building the robot. Here's a rough breakdown of the 'season':

-Kickoff: The game, the rules, and the items supplied to the teams are described and distributed.
-Design: Students and corporate engineers work together to design a robot that performs the necessary tasks to play the game with the materials they are allowed to use. Concepts become sketches, sketches become designs, designs become blueprints.
Construction: The robot is put together. Students and engineers fabricate the frame and construct the robot. Control, drive, pneumatic, and sensory systems are installed.
Programming: The electronic control system (based on Parallax's BASIC Stamp) is programmed.
Testing and Practice: The robot is tested, and bugs are worked out. Drivers are selected, and practice playing the game.

The ideal final product is a high-performance robotic athlete. This all happens within 6 weeks. The robot is then shipped to be approved for competition.

There's even more that goes on during the pre-competition season. Funds are raised (this isn't cheap, by any means), and community awareness is promoted. On several occasions, my team has taken robots from previous years and visited local elementary and junior-high schools. There are also several non-game awards, such as the Chairman's Award, awards presented by Autodesk, Judge's award, and awards for sportsmanship and community involvement.

The regional and national competitions are some of the most intense and exciting times any engineering or computer science student will ever experience. Besides controlling the robot for the few brief minutes of actual gameplay, students and engineers repair their robot in the Pit, scope out their competition and potential allies, and support the team from the stands. No two robots are the same; some do one part of the game better, others are good all-around. Each team's robot has a different way of getting the job done, despite the fact that each team received the same materials from the Kickoff.

The competition is fierce. There are stellar victories and crushing defeats. However, the fun and friendliness between opponents is (in most cases) preserved.

This is only a short and rather poor description of FIRST. To get a more whole picture, talk with students and engineers who have participated/are participating in FIRST. There's a very good chance that there's a team at a high school near you!

Now, addressing some of those whose experiences and opinions are not similar to mine (the arguments):

Concerning DeadBugs' "What They Really Learn"

I am sorry to learn that this is how your team works. Your team is missing the point of FIRST by miles. The idea behind FIRST is that the students do most of the designing and creation, and the engineers help and guide them. Some robots in the competition are 75% or more student-built. And yes, these robots can do very well (3rd place nationals). IMHO, your team needs evaluate itself in light of the ideas and purposes of FIRST, and get on the right track.

Concerning cwhittenburg's "Learn more from Junkyard Wars"

First, the teams are most definitely not provided with all the parts they need. Far from it. Teams must purchase much of the items and supplies that are used to construct the robot. The team can also pick and choose which items from the supplied kit they will use on their robot. One of the kit's major purposes is to ensure that robots are not too dissimilar. With the items that are supplied to the teams, the team has several different types of each basic item from which to choose. Continuing with your analogy, this is similar to being provided with several different engines, several different transmissions, several different wheels, etc. It's up to the team to get all these to work together. Also, some items can be significantly modified and customized.

Second, some robots are, very unfortunately, designed, constructed, and programmed mostly by the professional engineers on a team instead of the students. This is contrary to the ideas and purposes behind FIRST. (See above response to "What They Really Learn")

That's my perspective, as a former FIRST Team member and a current senior in high school. The only reason I'm not involved now is the fact that I don't have enough free time to devote myself to extracurricular activities. I'd jump without hesitation at the chance to become involved again.

--LightForce3

Comments/Replies appreciated

MIT Robots

[heliocentric]

But why does everyone think media hyped robot vs. robot competitions were the start of things? MIT for years put students against students building robots from the same set of materials for the battle arena of who can collect the most ping-pong balls. This competition was great, it was not only interesting, but the behind the scences views of the creators working on their robot setups, and the insight into strategy* was also interesting. The modern day over hyped, cartoonized naming, and street fighter-esq "battles" are so crappy compared to the good MIT battles. Anyone remember when the top builders from MIT went to China to work in teams of two (one MIT'er one Chinese) to get around a language barrior to develop robots?

* - there seemed to be two prevailing strategies: one was to put as many ping-pong balls into your base/hole/area/whatever the other was to put just a few (sometimes just one) and then block your opponents ability to put any (or few) into their base/hold/area/whatever.

Winning Design Strategy

[spoonboy42]

I was in FIRST a couple of years ago. My school wound up in about the middle of the pack in the Michigan state finals in Pontiac. The winning team had a brilliant design for manipulating the playground balls that are central to the game.

If anyone out there is planning on competing, DON'T USE A CLAW DESIGN. It's not reliable, and it's quite slow, as well. Instead, go with the simpler and much more effective "loop" design. Build two metal circles just a bit wider than the ball's diameter and cover them with the red, grippy textured rubber that comes in the construction kits. Then, mount the two circles an inch or two apart at the end of your manipulation arm, and put a pneumatic pump inside the arm with some more of the grip material at the end of the piston. To move balls, just get the loops over the ball, then activate the pump to lock it in place. This will work much better than a claw which, despite looking really cool, will very frequently drop the ball when jarred.