FIRST 2009: Taking Robotics To The Moon
I'm going to take a detour from Mac-centric news for a bit and bring you news on another one of my passions: Robotics. FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) has announced the rules for the new 2009 competition, and this one aims for an awesome new goal: replicating conditions on the moon!
Let me provide a little background: FIRST is an annual robotics tournament for high school teams that releases a set of rules for a game each year, and the objective is to build a robot to beat other teams in a competition field. I had the privilege of participating all four years of my High School career, and the competition is just plain awesome!
This year's contest, called "Lunacy," involves a field covered in a polymer that reduces traction and slippery wheels required on the robot to simulate the low traction environment on the moon. As usual, balls are involved with various ways of scoring to beat the opposing teams. FIRST has a more in-depth description on their site.
Check out the past competitions, they're awesome stuff!
FIRST Home Page [FIRST]
[via: MAKE]
Den Den Boy
Posted to In the World on 5 January 2009
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: competition, FIRST, games, robotics, robots
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Oh wow, I did US FIRST for two years way back when I was starting high school, lots of fun, especially when they had the finals at the Epcot Center in Disney World. Glad to see this is still going, though it looks like some sort of kinektics are used now in their kits ;)