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FIRST Robotics Championship Underway
Bob Moretti writes "The annual FIRST robotics championship is underway at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. 295 of the best high school teams from North America and beyond have brought close to 20,000 students. 130 pound, 5 foot tall robots compete for pride and national recognition. NASA is providing a webcast. An explanation of the somewhat complicated rules can be found here. Any event that puts science and engineering in the spotlight for thousands of high school kids, many of them from low income or inner city areas, is a must-see. <shameless promotion> My team is currently in 20th place in the Galileo division. </shameless promotion>"
The first 10 seconds of a match are purely autonomous. Then, the rest of it is remote controlled. And a lot DOES have to do with the robot, as certein teams are VERY good at what they do. My team(the Wheeler High School Circuit Runners http://www.circuitrunners.com) have a 100% accuracy for getting on the bar, and our shooter has a 96% accuracy for making the shots. It's a very fun competition, you should really watch it. Go Circuit Runners!
I want you to assume that all spelling and grammar errors are intentional. Thank You.
Sure many of the teams are from 'inner city' schools but the competetiveness of team has nothing to do with the students and everything to do with corporate sponsorship.
I was at a low income rural high school and we competed in 1997. There was no qualification to go to nationals, just pay up the $3000 entry fee. We had a local construction company pay for the entry fee and the high school gave a few hundred for parts.
When we got to the tournament (we all paid our own travel and lodging) we found out the student built robots are an extreme exception. Most literally are built at the labs of GM or NASA or who ever is the sponsor, the engineers do everything, and the students have no clue. This is encouraged. A machine actually built by students in their school doesn't stand a chance
USFirst is a joke in terms of education, it's just a big PR opportunity.
NOLA center for sci math, a Rookie school pulled a top half ranking (23 of 46) as a rookie school. Go fighting Nautali! wh00t!
about a month ago I was visiting during spring break. I was one of the founding members of the robotics club... except back then we called it RobiticA, and it was less of a robotics club per se and more of an excuse to cut class and play with electric motors, hydrolics and Legoes. in communist russia your sig posts you.
I know I define a successful robot build on how well it does in Robot Wars. All of these other tests seem, well, pointless. When you pit 2 robots against eachother in a battle to the death, that's the true test. Survival of the fittest defines strong humans, why not robots?
This is pretty cool that the Slashdot crowd follows this too. The Patribots just joined this year as a last minute team and we got 21 of 43 at the Colorado regional. Being one of 18 rooky teams it was quite the accomplishment along with getting the rooky inspiration award.
-Tim Louden
You might like some of the Botball Kits if you're interested in lego robotics.. Try kipr.org or botball.org. They provide a great set of legos for building your own robots, just add in a handyboard and you're all set.
and challenges the students involved to build the robots in a limited time enviroment (something like 8 weeks) for competition. No replacements are allowed, iirc, and only reworking can be done on site.
This'd directly refute the poster above, that thinks they're completely built by sponsors. I covered the Connecticut competition at the invitation of a systems operator involved with the event. It looked to me like most of the robots were well constructed home-brew with a competent technician helping the students along, shop teacher style.
Seems to me from being there and looking at the robots that there wouldn't be a huge advantage from designing them in a lab environment. The tasks are more geared toward creative design than sheer money thrown at them.
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
I'm a member of a Southwestern ontario robotics team.
our budget is rarly more than 6500$, 5000$ of that goes to our entry fee.
In the past 3 years we have competed against 50-75 teams at our toronto regional.
We have placed 8th,6th, and 4th.
Seeing the amazing machines that GM, Delphi, and NASA are able to make is breathtaking, our team consists of 2 Teachers, 2 engineers and aroun 15 students. We consistantly outplace teams with 20k+ funding and engineer driven..
This just shoes that determined thinking and commitment to a project can push us past our obsticles.