FIRST Robot Competition Wraps Up 76
CritterNYC writes: "CNN is carrying a brief article on the FIRST Robotics Competition in Florida (as originally reported on Slashdot here). This is the competition that Dean Kamen (Ginger inventor, etc) organized. Couple of interesting pics." Any FIRST participants out there who can link to pages describing their schools' projects? If anyone from CNN is reading, it would be great if you had some higher-res shots, too :)
Team page (Score:5)
and my brother's team [mrreed.com]
Re:Team page (Score:2)
Name/Alias: Cheezman
Age: 16
Grade: 11
Favorite Class(es): Basket-Weaving
Interest(s): Girls
Position(s) on team: just there to look good
Reason(s) for joining team: to make our team look good
Brief history of your self: I was born and now i am eye-candy for the ladies
Other(for anything else you want to say): if any hot girls wants a date, call me and i'll see if i can fit you in.
Curses! (Score:1)
Re:What about the REST of the kids? (Score:2)
I think the FIRST program is an excellent one; it is a great idea to have students work together with mentors from industry and academia. It's a great experience for them, and it helps put the focus on science and engineering education, which is often quite lacking in pre-university levels.
That said, however, I think realistically speaking, it is incredibly hard to pull together the support to do this project at smaller and more rural schools which don't have major industries and universities nearby. In addition, many smaller schools may not be able to pull together a large enough team to compete. If we step aside and think "outside the box" for a moment, I think we can all agree that there are many ways to promote science and engineering. For instance, when I was in HS, I participated in the Physics Olympiad and a local bridge-breaking contest. Yet both of those leaved much to be desired (ie, very few students competed on the US Physics Olympiad Team). We can encourage math and science in alternate ways which do not rely on expensive equipment or corporate sponsorships, and can reach many more students in the process.
To respond to another reader, I agree we shouldn't be "pushing" kids into science and engineering. Nothing could be worse. However, I think we should be making an effort to reach ALL kids out there who do have a genuine interest in science and engineering. We all know of examples of just how a few brilliant individuals can make major contributions to a field, and it is shameful to think that in all likelihood, we may not even be aware of such individuals, who may chose to go into alternate career paths. It is our loss.
What about the REST of the kids? (Score:5)
HOWEVER, if you look a little bit closer at preicsely where the teams are coming from, you will find that a disproportinate number come from schools in the immediate vicinity of high tech belts around major urband areas. (The San Francisco Bay Area appears to be the largest geographical segment). As such, this contest is quite similar to the long-running Wsstinghouse (now Intel) competition, where students in major urban areas working in collaboration with major researchers from academia and industry compete against kids who lack any support from sponsors, and whose only research tools are their local libraries and the web. While the FIRST website did not provide further demographics, I am quite willing to believe that its participants are similar to those of the Intel winners -- largely upper-middle-class to upper-class HS students from urban areas whose parents are college educated, often in the sciences.
What about the REST of the kids out there?
I think we should give serious thought as to what we are doing to encourage the REST of the kids out there to pursue math, science, and engineering careers. FIRST and Intel are great ideas, but I for one am skpetical that we are really targeting the students who need our attention the most -- those with genuine ability and inclination to pursue math and science, but who lack the support to make it to the FIRST competition in Florida, or who lack a sponsor to help them win Intel. I think many of us in science and engineering can point to a small number of folks who have had a major influence in supporting our careers; without that support, many of us would not be here today. The fact that we are turning our backs on large numbers of students with both the ability and the inclination to pursue science and engineering is a deeply disturbing notion that should give anyone pause.
The web is the universal medium of our age, which has broken down many geographical and class barriers. Can't we use it to reach the rest of the kids out there?
Re:What about the REST of the kids? (Score:1)
I personally know of some students who are involved in FIRST who have other interests. I know of two people on my brother's FIRST team, one was studying to be a doctor another a teacher.
Also the team has a very natural and good dynamic to it. It allows parents and students across corporate culture (in this case, since the team is sponsored by DuPont, but the participants don't have to be related to DuPont employees) to come together to do something positive. Managers, mechanics, and business people all coming together to work on something together and outside of their normal corporate duties is really awesome to see.
As to the original question. I think as they see the value in participating they can and will. The DuPont sponsored team is open to all students of school's in the greater Wilmington area.
http://www.moerobotics.org/
FIRST Pictures and small movies - KSC Regional (Score:1)
Pay special attention to movie 3 catching the fine art of balancing the bridge - a key component to high scoring in this years challenge.
Re:Had this at my high school... (Score:5)
This year, the team from my high school [sbac.edu] was aided by engineers from the University of Florida [ufl.edu] College of Engineering [ufl.edu], NASA, and various companies. The members learned problem solving skills and people skills that can't be learned in standard classes.
By the way, I went to part of the competition this year to support this year's team from my high school. (They did pretty well until the last day.) It was amazing - literally thousands of people cheering for the teams. It's great to see people be so enthusiastic about engineering.
Dean Kamen (Score:1)
So - what is he doing slacking off playing with toys instead of working to get this Ginger thing out and transform the way we travel in cities?
Come on Dean... we're all ready for the revolution - you can play battlebots when you're done
Kids today are lucky (Score:1)
God - imagine how many cool opportunities are available to H.S. kids today. Heck - my high school now offers Cisco certification classes.
Not only do you get certified (CCNA, but hey you're 17) you also get a grade and credit towards graduation.
How freakin' lucky and these ungrateful kids don't even know it.
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robot competitions (Score:1)
Re:Team 449 Page (Score:1)
You know, I think you guys had waaay too much fun with that wrench image...
Oh yes! Shameless plug time! Chips Online [mbhs.edu](actually, the print cousin) will have full robot coverage next month. Watch that space.
-J
I think you're missing the point (Score:2)
To my understanding, the point of FIRST has not been to monetarily fund the increase in science interest in education nationwide. Rather, the goal has been to get more kids thinking about science the way the majority of them now think about sports.
Dean's position has been that he wants science and engineering to get as much attention as major league sports, that he wants scientists and engineers to be heros and role models to children. If this were to happen, instead of all the kids being out on the basketball court working on their jump shot in the vain hope that they could make it to the NBA, they would be at home working on their homework in the more realistic hope that they could someday invent something of real value.
Re:What about the REST of the kids? (Score:1)
I've seen this phrase a thousand times, and it has just struck me: why do we have to push kids into engineering?
Sure, we're always going to need some engineers, but why do we have to have more and more, quicker growth of engineers? What's wrong with pushing out new computer tech a bit slower, if it means that we get people that actually like what they do? Let the kids study art or architecture or English or economics or philosophy if they want to.It won't hurt us to slow down a bit.
Re:You MUST consider the cost (Score:1)
Re:You MUST consider the cost (Score:1)
That's truly terrific, but it's also the exception.
-Ed
You MUST consider the cost (Score:5)
A typical FIRST team costs about $40,000 (most donated by companies) and provides a wonderful experience for about 10-30 students (depending on the school.)
For $40,000, robotics contests like MIT's 6.270 or 6.186 can provide an experience for about 200 students. FIRST's large robots eat up money at an astonishing rate.
I'm not saying FIRST should be done away with-- it gets businesses involved in education, but before people get too carried away-- keep in mind the gigantic cost of FIRST.
-Ed
Re:What about the REST of the kids? (Score:1)
There are lots of teams from other areas besides middle class suburbs. Is it easier for teams to be from there? Yes, because a lot of the infrastructure is already there. But it doesn't mean that's where all or even the majority of teams are from. And yes, area's with some sort of engineering infrastructure will have more teams (witness Michican) but that's because of the availability of sponsors.
The FIRST competition is about giving everyone chance. It doesn't matter where you come from or how much money you get. It doesn't even matter whether or not you win anything. It does matter that we're showing high school students that science and engineering are cool and that they really can accomplish something. And that's why I do it.
Matt Leese
Team Leader
Team 73
Re:Money and corporate sponsors != winning team (Score:2)
Matt Leese
Team Leader
Team 73
FIRST related websites (Score:5)
The control system used is built by InnovationFIRST [innovationfirst.com]. It consists of three Basic Stamp 2X controllers where one is user programmable. These are remote controlled robots but sensor input can be taken from the robot and used to preform certain tasks (for instance, several robots could "autobalance" on this year's bridge).
For more information on FIRST [usfirst.org], the following websites might be of interest.
Matt Leese
Team Leader
Team 73
Re:What about the REST of the kids? (Score:1)
Yes, right now there is an artifically large concentration of FIRST teams in certain high-tech areas. However, it is the goal of the organization to eventually offer teams whereever there is interest. FIRST is relatively young for an undertaking of such magnitude and hopefully in the next 10 years ( 2001 was the 10 aniversary ) it will be available to all students.
Also, as a quick aside, for the middle schoolers out there, there is a Lego League, which is far less costly than the other competition, but still encourages the ideals of FIRST. I believe the cost of the competition is around $500.
FIRST info (Score:5)
I'm a College Student Mentor for a FIRST Team based out of RIT. My team page can be found here [rit.edu]
I just wanted to comment on some of the posts. This is not a battlebots clone. Far from it. The goal is not to disable/destory the other team, and although the game itself changes from season to season, it has been trending towards a cooperative effort.
The messages and encouraged behavior while somewhat idealistic are exatly what today's highschool students need. If anything, (refering to some other posts i skimmed) it will prevent violent behavior by providing kids with afterschool activities. I encourage everyone looking for a way to fill free time to check out www.usfirst.org [usfirst.org]
I can say personally that FIRST ( this being my first year ) was a great experience and very personally rewarding to feel as if you are making a difference in others' lives.
Re:Kids today are lucky (Score:1)
Blair Robot Project (Score:1)
Something else that might be of interest to some of you is my PalmBot [mbhs.edu], a Palm controlled robot inspired by the PPRK. I got to bring this to the Nationals, and even got to meet Bob Metcalfe, creator of Ethernet and founder of 3Com, who happened to be a judge.
Re:I am exausted (Score:1)
Competitions in Schools (Score:2)
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
Domain Names for $13
Re:Competitions in Schools (Score:2)
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
Domain Names for $13
Re:Competitions in Schools (Score:2)
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
Domain Names for $13
Re:Apparently... (Score:1)
Re:Kids today are lucky (Score:2)
just to be fair, I must present the other side of the coin...
blah blah blah broken homes blah drugs blah alcohol blah academic pressure blach blah commericialism blah blah lack of traditional values blach blach blah blah too many choices blah blah DOOM blah blah global capitalism blah geek profiling blah blah
In other news, ain't nothing change, ain't nothing strange.
FIRST != BattleBots (Score:1)
Had this at my high school... (Score:2)
TechFusion Team 279 (Score:2)
For anyone not involved with FIRST, what are you waiting for? It's a ton of work but it is a seriously good cause and a lot of fun besides. FIRST nationals is a truly fun experience. If you ever get the chance to go, do it.
Here's our schools robot (Score:1)
For the lazy... clickable link... (Score:1)
Check it out... there are some cool pictures on this site.
PS: Please don't mod this up... only reason it isn't anonymous is so people will see it as a reply.
top 16 (Score:1)
Our team placed 4 in our division.
go Eagle strike!
Team Lightning, PCEP, plymouth, MI page (Score:1)
Re:I'm bored (Score:1)
I think it worked =]
Re:I'm bored (Score:1)
my actual account userid ranks in at under 60000, this is just, as you can see, an annoy and cause irritation account.
ironic, considering this troll count is newer than yours is.
Re:I'm bored (Score:1)
RAGE Team (Score:1)
They are called RAGE - Robotics and Gadget Engineering
Visit http://www.ragerobotics.org/ [ragerobotics.org] for more info.
OT: Ping Pong Balls and Robots (Score:1)
XML is "Arcane"?!? (Score:1)
as if
Re:The Miracle Workerz Team, team 365 (Score:1)
On teamwork... (includes website) (Score:1)
This was the second year of competition for the GSGIS Mech Techs (team 422), whose website can be found here [k12.va.us]. Also, many team websites can be found on FIRST's page. [usfirst.org]
For those who think this is Battlebots for high-schoolers, you should really do some research; FIRST does their best to be as far removed from Battlebot-style games as possible. This year, for example, the game involved a radical new concept: four robots on the field at a time, all on the same team. You all shared the same score (with one exception), so if something went wrong for your teammate, you took the hit with them. In the end, it was in everyone's best interest to make sure that every team built the best, most reliable robot possible. This is meant to simulate real-world engineering challenges; as Dean explains, companies like Coca-cola do better than their competitors by creating better products and advertising more, not by blowing up PepsiCo's international headquarters. In the real world, teamwork is the only way to get things done, and if you go out and destroy the competition there is no-one to team up with.
While I was at one of the regional competitions, I saw a great example of this. There was a team who had basically been logistically screwed; their parts didn't arrive in time, they didn't have enough help from their community (in terms of engineers), and their robot was even shipped upside-down! They put out an SOS over e-mail before the competition, and when they arrived there were three teams (ours included) lined up to help them out. Their robot wasn't the best out there, but it went from completely unfinished to running in a few hours. At the end of the comp, they won a judges' special award for having the courage to swallow their pride and ask for help. Everyone cheered.
In real life, teamwork is more important than competition. If only the nations of the world could learn that lesson...
Take care,
Mark
Drop the cost, perhaps? (Score:1)
This is a very good point, and one I feel FIRST does its best to overcome. Dean Kamen, for one, continues to encourage those to whom he speaks to seek out the disadvantaged children, not the ones already interested in math and science. In a recent lecture to the Richmond Joint Engineer's Council [rjec.org], Dean stressed that it was the responsibility of the engineers to reach out to those who don't know about what they do; preaching to the choir only does so much good.
I don't know much about the Intel program, but I feel that FIRST sets itself up fairly well to seek out disadvantaged students through a grass-roots approach. The most prestigious award in the FIRST competition is the Chairman's Award, given to a team who best promotes the spirit of the FIRST competition. This award is given to teams who mentor other teams, as well as teams who went through hell to get into the competition. It helps keep everyone focused on the primary goal of FIRST at this time: to reach out to every school system, so that every student has an opportunity to participate.
One serious obstacle that I see is the cost to compete. At at least US$5000 for each team to enter one competition (which does not include travel costs, extra parts, or uniforms), teams have to pull major corporate sponsorship to participate at all. That is actually part of the competition; students are supposed to learn how to convince money sources that they have a worthwhile project, just as real engineers have to convince people to fund their ideas. However, I think that any drop in this cost--while extremely difficult to accomplish--would pull in more teams. Most teams spend upwards of US$15000 to compete, and there is no question that richer teams get many advantages over poorer teams. However, I think that dropping that minimum cost would really help pull in more teams.
The only problem is that it may be impossible to do.
Take care,
Mark
Corry Area High School (Score:1)
Here [myschoolonline.com] is a link to the group my younger brother work with. Just wish they had this stuff back when I was in high school.
btw I had problems viewing the page but it may have just been IE.
FIRST Pictures (Score:1)
Pictures from the 2000 Competition (hi-res) - (http://www.windsorct.org/first/2000/media.html [windsorct.org])
I had a friend who went to something like this... (Score:1)
It was funny.
They had to do stupid stuff, like take 5 straws, and make a thing to protect an egg when you drop it. He said it was just redicoulas, all the other teams were like trying to shove the eggs up there noses or something. Needles to say, they came in pretty good.
I was in the competition this year (Score:1)
Aww Nuts! (Score:1)
1 byte in body ?? (Score:1)
This may be slightly off topic, but it's not intended as a flame.
I'm just curious as to why the front page says this news item has 1 byte in body? Another Slash bug or some other anomoly of the system? The article before this only had 4 bytes in body (apparantly).
Just curious is all
Re:Slash is more buggy than you think (Score:1)
I am exausted (Score:1)
Re:1 byte in body ?? (Score:1)
Re:I'm bored (Score:1)
Please, try harder next time.
Re:FIRST info (Score:1)
Cest la vie.
Re:I'm bored (Score:1)
I've been reading /. long enough that very little of the crap that gets posted to the forums ever annoys me.
though, I shall admit, sometimes I do rather enjoy being the jackass to rain on other's parades.
But, then again, that's life, isn't it?
Re:I'm bored (Score:1)
However, being that I really could care less who's account was made first, who started reading /. first, I really don't see why you think that you annoyed me. Could it simply be that I'm one of the few that actually reads all the posts? Could it be that every now and then, I just feel like posting a reply to some of them - at random, even?
Could it be that I just felt it would be the kind hearted thing to do by informing you that there is more to trolling than crap-flooding?
Afterall, you've now replied to me twice... so what is that saying?
Re:Surprise, surprise (Score:1)
How communistic!
Re:ROBOT FIGHTING == GOOD (Score:1)
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The best thing about this competition (Score:1)
Who are the real robots? (Score:1)
Either that, or they will get jobs working for Microsoft, and become robots themselves ...
--
The Miracle Workerz Team, team 365 (Score:2)
My National Champion medal and my team jersey signed by Woody Flowers (National Advisor to first, and professor at MIT) is proudly displayed in my room.
If anyone from our alliance is reading, I'd like to thank them for a job well done, you deserve the National Championship.
The world needs more people like Dean Kamen, and the many engineers and parents who helped out our team.
bragging (Score:1)
team overclocked (Score:1)
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Re:Surprise, surprise (Score:1)
Try thinking about this from a different perspective..at the end of the competition what do you have? a bunch of mediocre robots and a few really good ones. Now what do you suppose would happen if the teams all compared notes and shared blueprints after the competition? The average robot would be substantially better next time around, eh? Do you think that this type of across the board improvement would work with a closed source model?
Failing to understand what the open source advantages are doesn't make them go away.
Re:Surprise, surprise (Score:2)
However, both the original poster and I were referring to the differences in the open vs. closed source models and the results in the development of robots. If you feel that my social or moral evaluation of the differences is wanting, that's because I offered none. If that's what you're looking for, how's this: The closed source model rewards the best teams by giving them shiny prizes for their robots. That's great. The open source model rewards *all* participating teams by giving all of the participants a greater knowledge base and the benefit of shared experience. That's even better.
My guess, however, is that you would see either as equally desirable because you, of course, would be a member of one of the superior teams. Right.
Hack Shoeboy (Score:1)
Purple Haze (Score:1)
First. (Score:1)
-Impossible www.badcontent.net [badcontent.net]
Team 449 Page (Score:1)
Yup, it was awesome (Score:1)
Even though I was no budding engineer, had no clue as to how to build a robot, the experience proved that there was much more involved than the actual science of robotics. Rather, a great deal of our activities centered around logistics, such as contacting and securing sponsors, working out schedules, ordering and keeping track of work equipment such as the rendering computers and parts. Man, installing WinNT 3.5something and then 3D Studios on a P-75 w/32MB RAM was a royal pain in the ass, but that was the state of the art computer in our lab at the time. Needed it for the computer rendering part of the competition. Since our team was so small, every brain and pair of hands was put to work. Because of that, everyone needed to learn every aspect involved in the operation.
Our mentor, Bob, kicked ass. At the time, he was a graduate student doing his thesis on robotics at a nearby university. He never acted authoritarian, rather more like another high school student
The week of competition was memorable. Our robot wasn't fancy or professional-looking in comparison with the others, but it was the result of our own hard work. Our team was dwarfed by most of the participating teams (some teams'cheerleading sections outnumbered our entire team). We didn't have any fancy setup, just our robot. Never felt happier seeing so many people enthusiastic and cheering each other on. It was the first time that I saw the 'macarena' done in mass
The costs of entering the competition was definitely high, and without support from the sponsors, there was no way a team can buy the equipment and parts and show up to Florida for the competition. Our school is located in the SF Bay Area, but it was still difficult getting enough support for even a ten person team then. If this was hard, then it would probably be downright impossible for schools in less developed areas to participate. I haven't been following the competition since 1997, so maybe the FIRST organizers found ways to encourage more schools to join in.
Re:What about the REST of the kids? (Score:1)
Back in '96, there were only two schools from California, and both came from the SF Bay Area. The majority of the schools were indeed from the East Coast, around urban centers. Now, there are quite a few coming from the SF Bay Area. Why? With large universities like UC Berkeley or Stanford nearby, and the multitude of hi-tech companies in the Silicon Valley it's much easier for schools to find sponsors and mentors, especially if they are starting out.
What FIRST should do to encourage other schools in more remote regions to participate is to perhaps initiate some form of partnership program between business sponsors with contacts in those respective regions. Try to encourage nearby colleges or universities to join in to provide mentors or even funding.
Or, it could be more of a grass-roots operation-not sure how that will work, as each city or town has its way of going about its business. However, as long as people perceive something like this to be worth it for their kids, then they'll find some way.
Re:Surprise, surprise (Score:1)
Money and corporate sponsors = winning team (Score:2)
I was on a FIRST team three years ago as a member of the University of Idaho / Moscow High School team. We had very little money and no experienced team members in machining, welding, electronics, etc. As a result, we did poorly. I'm glad we did. It gave us a chance to observe the winning teams and how they worked. I also was able to talk to several of the high school students on the team that wound up winning the competition. He's what we saw:
Observations of winning FIRST teams:
1. The only teams that did well had large corporate sponsors. In our competition, one company entered four teams - they all paced in the top 10. This one company had turned the FIRST competition into their own inter-company rivalry.
2. The students I talked to on the winning team didn't build most of the robot. They were allowed to draw pictures of what they thought it should look like (with help from engineers from the sponsor) and the sponsors chose the best design, and modified it to their liking, and built it for the students. The students were allowed to decorate it, put stickers on it, etc.
3. If you watch the winning teams in the pit areas, you see large amount of brand-new expensive tools (portable lathes, drill presses, laptops, 5-foot tall roll-away snap-on tool sets, etc.) Also, you will rarely see a student actually work on the robot. They hand tools to the sponsoring engineers, but only the adults actually fix the robots.
4. The parts kit you get with your registration does not change much from year to year, so you can design (for example) a drive system one year, and spend all of the next year perfecting it, so that this design is done and already built for the next year. The winning team was working on their robot for three months before they got the rules for the next competition. Since the nature of the competition does not change a great deal from year to year, you can reuse a lot of last year's work.
I think the students we worked with got a lot more out of the competition than the students on the winning teams - they designed, built, maintained, and drove THEIR robot. They learned about problem solving, choosing the right material for the right application (given the loading forces, etc.), team work (the students had to work together to built the robot.), and that if all you want to do is win you wind up sacrificing a lot of things.
If anyone has ever been a part of Olympics of the Mind, you'll find that this is a much better way of getting students interested in engineering and science (at least it was when I participated) I saw third-grade teams beat college teams because the materials and tools were limited to the point that money and professional machining skills had little benefit to the final outcome.