Students have six weeks to build a robot from scratch.
On January 5, Nearly 51,000 high-school students in 81 cities around the world joined the FIRST Robotics 2013 Kickoff via live NASA-TV broadcast and webcast. Central Tech Pre-Engineering students attended a local kickoff event in Stillwater.
“FIRST isn’t about competing, it’s about cooperating and recognizing that if you have the right tools, you’ll be able to make the world a better place for yourself and for the country,” said Dean Kamen, president of DEKA Research and Development and FIRST Founder. “There is no stimulus package that will have as much return as stimulating a bunch of kids to become the workforce of the future, the problem solvers, the creators of the future.”
The 2013 Game, ULTIMATE ASCENT, is played between two Alliances of three teams each. Each Alliance competes by trying to score as many flying discs into their goals as possible during the two-minute and 15-second match. Discs scored in higher goals score Alliances more points. Matches end with robots attempting to climb up pyramids located near the middle of the field.
“At the Kickoff event, our team was shown the ULTIMATE ASCENT playing field and received a Kit of Parts made up of motors, batteries, a control system, a PC and a mix of automation components – with no instructions,” said Shane Bruce, Central Tech Pre-Engineering instructor. “Our students will work with our sponsor Tinker, over the course of six weeks to design, build, program and test their robots to meet the season’s engineering challenge.”
“John Grunsfeld, Head of Science at NASA, said, “This competition will also be similar in many ways to how we designed, built and tested the NASA Mars Curiosity Rover now exploring the red planet. NASA looks forward to seeing the innovative solutions developed and seeing how creativity might help inspire development of future spacecraft systems.”
Come to Open House on Sunday February 17 from 1-4 pm and come by the Pre-Engineering classroom in Drumright to see the robot in action.