Area high school students with an engineering bent will soon hear the rules for the 2009 "first" competition.
"For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" - or "FIRST"- is a contest that challenges teams of budding engineers to build a game-playing robot. The rules of the game are a surprise every year, and each team gets a standard kit of parts and six weeks to design and build their robot. Sally Harrington is a spokesperson for NASA Glenn, a FIRST sponsor, says the task can be quite challenging
HARRINGTON: Last year was sort of like a car race where the robots had to go around in an oval path and as they did there were different ways of scoring-
She says teams got points for the number of laps they did around the track, or for placing large rubber balls on a platform. Games in other years have involved something akin to a basketball court, or placing rubber inner-tubes on a multi-armed structure. Harrington says while it is a competition, teams have to work together - not unlike teams of engineers in real life - so while they are learning engineering, they are also learning to be engineers. This years game will be revealed on January 3rd at at local kickoff events held in Cleveland and Columbus.
Gretchen Cuda, 90.3