HS Students Compete In FIRST Robotics Competition

A trio of teams have banded together to succeed in the 'FIRST Robotics Competition'. The teams Bobcat Robotics from South Windsor, Connecticut, Highrollers from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Gompei and the HERD from Worcester, Massachusetts combined to create a versatile robot geared to succeeding at a number of odd tasks. "These young people had six weeks to perfect their machines. And they had the enthusiasm of any athletic competition. From tie-dyed shirts to human hair dyed in school colors, competitors from 23 countries showed that math, science and brains can provide a lot of excitement ... Whether it is computer programming, wiring a motor or scouting rivals to develop strategy, students said the skills they develop often go beyond the contest. Clearly, the event has piqued the interest of major sponsors such as NASA, which will broadcast webcasts of the competitions."

Comments

FIRST outside North America

[Anonymous Coward]

FIRST is quite good - I was in a team competing from the UK, unfortunately, for teams outside the US/Canada it's fairly hard to raise the money to build the robot and get the team to the event!

Some sort of initiative to help teams outside of North America would be good I think - there is a fair bit of interest over here in the UK.

Every Little Bit Helps

[realthing02]

While this probably won't get too much play outside of the tech community, it's good to see there is at least an interest in computer science/robotics in the high school level. It wasn't until college that i had the ability to tinker with some robots, and it was a great experience and definitely taught me a lot about the field, not just theory.

Now i just can't wait for robotics teams to get a slice of that high school football budget.