DC FIRST Robotics Competition

Friday was the opening of the DC regional FIRST Robotics Competition.  I had not been to a FIRST competition before.  The students are in high school.  Six weeks ago, each team received a kit from which they are to make their robots.  The robots play a form of basketball.

During the first 20 seconds, the robots autonomous.  They must find the basket and shot two balls into the basket without any input from a human.  They have sensors that can "see" the backboard of the hoop.

The robots are then under remote control of the student teams.  They try to make baskets and must "pick up" the balls and shoot.  The high basket is 3 points, the middle basket is 2 points and the low basket is 1 basket.  The most points are if two opposing team robots can get on and balance on the  balance board for 45 seconds without moving.

The kids have a lot of fun with it and many of them dress up in all kind of fun ways.  It was really fun to see and to talk with the students and their mentors.  This is a great program that kids can really get excited about while learning.