The New York City FIRST Robotics Competition, exhibiting real-life robotics along with events and entertainments including video games will take place at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, NY, scheduled from March 16-18, 2012.
Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect Changes the Way the Robotics Game is Played at the New York City FIRST® Mega Weekend
Over 60 robotics teams will compete in ‘Rebound Rumble’ format. Using Xbox 360 Kinect Controllers, the FIRST Robotics teams prepare to participate in the competition.
In the FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff Video broadcasted on January 9, 2012, GM, Hardware Incubation for Xbox at Microsoft, Alex Kipman stated that Kinect has been designed to simplify the entertainment, making it available to all. The application of this technology is extensive, ensuring promising potential for the future. The much awaited FIRST Robotics Competition will be a virtual representation, showcasing the team’s efforts in implementation and operation of robots.
At the FIRST Robotics Competition, alliance teams can add one of their robots' autonomous operations, enabling a team member to be the controller. This will promote a method wherein the Xbox 360 Kinect and the alliance robot combine to form a Hybrid, facilitating the driver to control through a series of motions for the first 15 secs, whereas 15 secs later, the conventional controls gets activated and starts functioning relieving the alliance driver to assist the team.
The Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect is one of the complementary offering being added to the ‘Rebound Rumble’ format and to the FIRST Robotics Competition.