Has anyone here heard of the FIRST robotics competition?

[honeywolf7]

FIRST is a group started by Dean Kamen (the guy who invented the Segue) to encourage kids to want to be scientists instead of rock stars/actors/etc. They have a robotics competiion every year (I believe they have local competiitons....know they have regionals and nationals.) I volunteered on Thursday for the South Atlantic Regional which is being held at VCU and I wondered if any DISers had heard of it and especially if any might have had kids or known kids who participated in it (nationally not the specific one that I volunteered for.)

 

[MerryPoppins]

My daughter competed last year in nationals and this year in regionals for Botball. They build robots out of legos and sensors, etc. then program them - no remote controls, just programming. She has lots of fun with it. This year nationals is in California. Too far for middle school kids, so maybe next year.

I'm not familiar with the one you are talking about. Hope you have fun.

 

[honeywolf7]

It's going on Thursday-tomorrow (I only voluteered on Thursday) and the competition you're talking about sounds very similar(except that these kids are in High School.) We have one team from Canada at our regionals and there are actually other teams from Canada, one from Brazil, one from Ecuador, and one from the U.K.

 

[MerryPoppins]

This is middle school through high school. There is another division for college age.

Have a good time. I know Botball is really fun to watch.

 

[wdw4us]

My son did it for 4 years in high school. Went to Disneyworld 3 times with the team. It was a great experience for him and for us as parents too.

He was never sports minded but told me once FIRST was the only thing that was great about high school.

He later graduated and went onto college where he majored in Special Effects for movies, including making robots, makeup, minitures etc. All stuff from FIRST help him get his degree.

I can't say enough about this program it is great. I am from Manchester NH where Dean lives. Our regional is this weekend too here in town. I miss those days it was a lot of fun. My husband and I helped out the team for fund raising and one year I helped make some of the pieces that were used in the practice sessions, since I sew, they volunteered me to make these large pillow like objects from satin, velcro and plastic packing popcorn. I made 17 of those babys!



denise

 

[honeywolf7]

Cool

 

[monarchsfan16]

Yeah, it's pretty big around here, since this is Dean Kamen country. It's never been something that's interested me, but I've got friends on the team at my school (in Manchester, NH) and all of it is a pretty big deal. Last year they competed in the regional in Manchester, plus one down in Houston. In other years I know they went to WDW to compete. They're competing now at the regional here, not sure if they're going to any others this year. The team never does very well, but they're really close and have a lot of spirit.

 

[ToriLammy]

My brother-in-law who is an engineer was a coach for the winning team in 1998. He had been doing it for a few years then but his wife made him stop coaching in 1999. She thought it was too time consuming. I'm sure he still misses it though.

 

[honeywolf7]

I was rooting for the Canadian team because they came so far...they didn't win but they got to the semi-finals.