FIRST Robotics Competition fever has hit the schools once again. At the annual robotics competition the students get a chance to test their skills as part of a robot building team. They go through the process of designing and building their robots for the competition and learn a lot more than robotics in the process.
Bradley Wells from the Cedar Falls High School in Iowa said that he loved the fact that the competition gave the nerds and geeks from school something to do. He added that it made math and science cool as he and 21 other team mates tested their latest creation.
Samir Masood from Austin High School said that while skills like computer programming, robotics, physics and welding are impressive skills to have individually, the lesson is that robotics class is a team sport.
Ryan Stanley the welding teacher at Austin High School said that they had designed the Principals of Technology and Engineering (or robotics) class to incorporate both the academic side and the industrial side. He added that they were one of the few schools in the state that had this as a class. They were one of the few schools that did the robot building in the class. Normally it was a club and it's done after school.
The task for the robots at the competition at the end of March is making it shoot basketball hoops. There are strict guidelines for the size of the robot. There are three different levels of difficulty to prepare for and the robotics teams take their tasks very seriously indeed.