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Today is our last day at New York City FIRST Robotics Competition, thousands of kids, parents, mentors and teachers were on site for the competition and the career fair.
There are a few competitions, the FIRST LEGO league is designed for young people ages 9-14, it uses uses the LEGO MindStorms System to provide creative technological experiences for younger children.
Robotics competition - The core of the high school-level FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is the design and building of a robotic competitor. Working in teams, students have just six weeks to create their robot. They get the opportunity to work with programmable radio controls, pneumatics, motors, electrical circuits, mechanics, machining, web design, computer animation, computer assisted design, and other technologies - just like professional engineers and technologists do.
Following the six-week design and build phase, teams enter local and regional competitions. In 2007, there were 37 regional competitions, with over 1,300 US high schools participating in the "game".
This year the robotics competition pitted teams against each other racing around a track knocking the other team's giant ball out of a holder and then stealing it away - more photos here.
Special thanks to all the Makers - MAKE subscribers who stopped by, the Dubno brothers, Dean Kamen, the teachers, students and new friends who we met and to Collin and Marc for helping me out on Saturday, thanks!
Editor's note: This is part of the "mobile post" series which will appear on MAKE - sponsored by Windows Mobile. Only the links and voice that appear in the mobile post box (below) are part of the campaign on MAKE - pt.
Folks:
Thanks for the photos. The importance of the whole FIRST program cannot be over-emphasized. FIRST's genius and vision has been to treat science, technology, engineering and mechanics like we treat sports -- get kids in first grade, keep them in all the way to college, make it fun, exciting, positive, affordable and available the whole time. The U.S. ALWAYS fields a super olympics team, but we have to hire our scientists, etc. from overseas. Ever wonder why?
In my own view, it also ensures the future of a great American tradition, which is MAKE THINGS! FIX THINGS! WORK AROUND! THINK OF A WAY! That's what you guys do, too. Lose that and we'll be a nation of consumers, no longer pioneers.
Please do what you can for groups like FIRST. I love your magazine and wouldn't be bothering to write this if I didn't.
Andy Wooten
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