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FIRST Robotics Championship Underway

Posted by timothy on from the pull-up-an-eyeball dept.

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>"

7 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. FIRST post by r_glen · · Score: 5, Informative

    How about a link that works

  2. Robots compete? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    130 pound, 5 foot tall robots compete for pride and national recognition.

    The robots do what they do because some nice person has placed a wire up their ass, unless this is an advanced AI contest.

    1. Re:Robots compete? by Farrell · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.
  3. Let's be honest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The most successful candidates, the most experienced candidates, are fundamentally driven by the simple, throbbing desire to eventually succeed in building a real girl (or at least an interim jerk-off-bot) a la Weird Science.

  4. USFirst is a Scam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:A FIRST Lego league, too by dculp · · Score: 5, Informative
    There are quite a few sites that still sell Mindstorms products. Try ebay for starters. Amazon.com also carries Mindstorms.

    Try the following places also, Acroname and Mondotronics Robot Store

    David Culp

    Coach of the 2004 Oklahoma Regional Botball (http://www.botball.org) Champions (1st and 2nd place teams actually).

  6. Disturbing by kirisu · · Score: 5, Informative

    It is rather disturbing how many people are bashing the program. It is a good chance for students to learn about many things they otherwise wouldn't in high school. The students on the team I help mentor (1243 out of Swartz Creek, MI) did all the pnuematics and all the electrical systems. We also have students learning how to program in C, doing all the autonomous code and writing code to handle inputs from the various controls. All the mentors did was explain to them how the systems worked, they hooked it up, they figured out problems, and they built the robot.

    We are a rookie team this year, took first at the Grand Rapids regional, and are currently competing at the championship (17th place in the Curie division, currently). Sadly, I am not there.