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2005 FIRST Robotics Competition Announced
Gothic_Walrus writes "Dean Kamen strikes again! The 2005 game for FIRST Robotics was announced today through an international sattellite feed provided by NASA. Dubbed 'Triple Play,' the game features two groups of three robots competing to stack pyramid-shaped pieces and to align them in rows. Think Tic-Tac-Toe, but three-dimensional. This game should be a challenge for the 1,000+ active teams in FIRST, which are located throughout the U.S. and Canada (and even Brazil). Video of the game can be found here. Go 818!"
Just a minor correction to the original post, FIRST teams are located all over the world. If you go to the FIRST website they have an interactive map that shows where teams are from. Last year I was able to help reprogram the robot for an Equidorian team (their keyboard was is Spanish!) and work with a team from England. This year there are even 10 new teams in Israel.
Dean Kamen will tell you, FIRST isn't about building robots. It's about building our future.
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Jack Higgs
Programmer / Mentor / Parent
Team Fusion #364
Gulfport High School, Gulfport, Mississippi, USA
I'm the student head of our programming group, and I'm surprised at how much they gave us. We spent endless hours trying to get our robot to drive in a straight line last year (motor power issues). This year? We've got software that will auto-correct its path...software that FIRST gave us.
That said, I still think that there's room for the programmers to work here. There are actually many, many options for the autonomous mode - we could block other robots, for example, or maybe go to the human player pad instead of for the magical green pyramids.
Besides...who said that you have to use the code that FIRST gives us? If it bothers you that much, write your own! :)
I agree that drivers and mechanical issues will decide the game, but I still think there's room for us to be important in the team's success.
Goo goo g'joob.
FIRST teams are made up of high school students, people who would never be able to experience this otherwise. The competition isn't an issue - FIRST provides the game every year. The money can be hard to come by, but donations from large companies such as General Motors (our sponsor) or from other groups or individuals take care of a large portion of that. Supervision isn't hard to find either; most teams are led by engineers, teachers, and other volunteers.
The main empasis of FIRST is not the game itself - as Dean said today, "the robot is just a vehicle, no pun intended." FIRST emphasizes what is known as "gracious professionalism" - in essence, remembering that playing fairly and developing respect and possibly even friendship for your opponents should NEVER come after winning the game. FIRST is trying to get students to become interested in engineering, in math and science. The UK may be different, but America needs those people to fill the holes in the already-falling number of technically skilled employees.
It may sound corny and stupid, but the main goal of FIRST is literally to change the world. I'd bet that the BBC shows aren't going to benefit society quite as much in the long run. :)
Goo goo g'joob.
The FIRST Competition can only be competed in by highschool teams. That said, they almost always have some sort of sponsorship from a large corporation or many smaller businesses. The fee for a team to go to one event was $3000 when I was on a team (GO 904!) and then $2000 for every competition after that.
Also another thing that makes this competition unique is that every team starts with the same basic kit of parts, and are limited to certain parts that they can buy separately, despite this there are often huge differences in design, usually due to game strategy theory.
The largest amount of money involved comes from sponsors and from corporations offering scholarships to team members, some of which are very generous.