OMGrobots - Blog Posts

Robotics Pit Area: Where students repair their robot between matches

It Begins 4,900 Teams of Robot Builders

You may or may not have noticed the anxious stir experienced by high schoolers around the world. Not the stir associated with the holiday season or fear of returning back to school but caused by anxiety for a six week long engineering mission. Tomorrow, January 3rd, over 4,900 FIRST Robotics teams will be assigned a game for which they design, fabricate, and program a 120lb robot to compete. Really, a bunch of high schoolers are going to build a sophisticated machine requiring skills way beyond what they learn in school? Sounds like 4,900 teams of overly confident loony toons to me. I assure you from experience being on one of theses ambitious bot building teams that it is possible with copious amounts of drive and dedication.

Tubes, balls, frisbees and even miniature robots have been tossed, thrown and launched by these high schoolers' mechanical creations. At competition following their build season, teams compete with each other in the game assigned weeks prior. Games in the past have been similar to traditional sports such as soccer, basketball, ultimate frisbee, and volleyball. Until tomorrow teams have no clue what kind of robot they will be creating.

FIRST Robotics is the master mind behind getting students and their communities hooked on robotics. Inventor Dean Kamen and professor Woodie Flowers, FIRST founders, wanted to inspire the next generation of innovators. Their mission is reflected in the competition's name FIRST Robotics - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. Kind of a mouthful but tech savvy love their acronyms.

Get in on this crazy tech action by watching the FIRST Robotics Kick Off where the new game will be revealed January 3, 2015 10:15am EST : http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed/2015-first-robotics-competition-kickoff

This is last years game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5zWzICG5to

The FIRST Robotics team a part of is the Duluth East Daredevils team 2512. Here is a previous robot a robot designed for an ultimate frisbee competition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZqM96bJaH4

FIRST Robotics Link: http://www.usfirst.org/