Comment FIRST Robotics Competition (Score 1) 842
I volunteered as a technical inspector at a
regional FIRST Robotics (http://www.usfirst.org/) competition last year.
It involved a few hundred enthusiastic students (and, amazingly, a few hundred enthusiastic fans).
The actual project was pretty well thought out for high school students, i.e., it was pretty simple to get *something* working, but there was plenty of opportunity for scale up to more complex designs to keep it interesting. Some circuits, some programming, some mechanical design.. really something for everybody.
I felt like it was a pretty good experience for the students, and it has a pretty low entry barrier ($$$) for corporate sponsorship. Depending on the level of interest, you can sponsor individual teams or whole competitions, and "expert" volunteers are alwats needed.
Doesn't run the whole IT gamut, but it's been really successful, and needs more sponsored teams to scale up...
It involved a few hundred enthusiastic students (and, amazingly, a few hundred enthusiastic fans).
The actual project was pretty well thought out for high school students, i.e., it was pretty simple to get *something* working, but there was plenty of opportunity for scale up to more complex designs to keep it interesting. Some circuits, some programming, some mechanical design.. really something for everybody.
I felt like it was a pretty good experience for the students, and it has a pretty low entry barrier ($$$) for corporate sponsorship. Depending on the level of interest, you can sponsor individual teams or whole competitions, and "expert" volunteers are alwats needed.
Doesn't run the whole IT gamut, but it's been really successful, and needs more sponsored teams to scale up...
