Main Menu

E&T Home
POWER-Storm Home
Contacts
Sponsors
What is FIRST?
Our Members
Our Mentors
Links
Calendar
Gallery 2007
Gallery 2008

What is FIRST Robotics?

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. The program is a life-changing, career-molding experience for over 30,000 high-school-aged young people each year. The competitions are hightech spectator sporting events, the result of lots of focused brainstorming, realworld teamwork, dedicated mentoring, project timelines, and deadlines. Teams have just six weeks to design and build a 130 pound radio controlled robot to meet the annual challenge.

For most teams, there is "pre-season" work in the fall when they identify new members, learn new skills and develop new designs. Many teams work with middle school and elementary school students with VEX or LEGO programs.

The real excitement begins the first weekend of January, when FIRST announces the new game / challenge for the year. Everyone learns the new challenge the same day, and then has just six weeks to determine the "best" solution to play the challenge. Teams then design, fabricate, build and test their machine. The stakes are high - miss the mandatory ship date and you cannot compete. Every team has a different solution to the best robot and different skills, capabilities, experience and resources. In the end, no robot can weight more than 130 pounds, and must be smaller than 30" x 40" x 60" tall.

To assure a somewhat "level playing field", each team receives a kit of parts that includes the basics to build a working robot. This kit includes motors, pneumatics, electronic controls, wiring materials, wheels, transmissions and a basic kit frame. Some parts, like the control board, must be used, other parts are optional. Teams then build their unique fabrications by adding to this kit. There are strict, specific rules on materials, wiring methods and safety precautions to be sure the robots are safe for the students and other game participants.

At competitions, teams compete in randomly paired matches of robot alliances. In each match, teams compete with and against different partners. Each match has a winning alliance and at the end of the regular matches the top winning teams pick partners to go into a final elimination tournament. No one knows what the game or match play will be like for 2007. Past challenges have included foam balls, soccer balls, PVC tetrahedrals, flimsy bean bag donuts, stairs, ramps and a hanging bar.

Unique to FIRST are the ideas of "Gracious Professionalism" and "Co- Opertition". Gracious Professionalism is the expected behavior of teams on and off the playing field - good sportsmanship and fair play to the extreme level. Co- Opertition describes the idea of competing like crazy for a 2 minute match, then helping another team with repairs, spare parts, programming or machining to help their robot compete. These ideas drive teams to share their designs, software code and even make parts for each other during a competition to continually raise the level of play for everyone.

There are 37 Regional competitions over 5 weekends in March. Teams can choose which regional they want to attend, based on location, expense and their schedule. The Championship Event in early April includes over 300 teams and is dubbed "The Super Bowl of Smarts".

FIRST was founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of several medical devices and the Segway Human Transport and iBot Wheelchair. The main advisor to FIRST is Woody Flowers, Professor from MIT. More information can be found at www.usfirst.org.

Career Development Opportunities & Skills

Questions, additional information or applications to become part of this new team, contact:

Winfred Turner
(317) 230-4191 (work)
(317) 345-1051 (cell)
winfred.l.turner@rolls-royce.com