Drum bands cranking out the rhythms! Cheering face painted crowds, and school mascots acting like… well mascots! Is it another Friday at the stadium? No. These folks are excited about math and science students competing at the 2012 Seattle FIRST Robotics competition Friday and Saturday March 23rd and 24th at the Century Link Events Center this last weekend. 93 high school teams from all over the Northwest, including a team from Mexico and three teams from the nation of Turkey, came together in the spirit of scientific excellence to showcase their talents in preparation for the US Nationals later this year in St. Louis.

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An estimated ten thousand people attended the two day robotics competition at Century Link to watch these incredibly talented high school aged boys and girls show that they are capable of amazing feats of knowledge, skill and cooperation equal to any athletic endeavor.
Now when I say robots I’m not talking about some toy you can purchase at Radio Shack or Toys R Us. These are extremely high tech assemblages’ that look more like something you’d see traversing the surface of the Moon or the Martian landscape.

What makes this competition even more amazing is the fact these students have only ten weeks to design, build, and test these machines. Guidance and assistance comes from adult team mentors with knowledge in applied sciences. But make no mistake, these are smart, capable young people and their enthusiasm is eclipsed only by their drive to succeed.
In attendance on Friday the 23rd was FIRST founder Dean Kamen (the inventor of the Segway and a stair climbing wheelchair, among other things). Dean Kamen holds rock star status with the participants at the FIRST event being mobbed by forty to fifty people as he wandered through the pit area. Also in attendance were Governor Christine Gregroire and Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of Washington Randy Dorn.

Started in 1989 FIRST, or For Inspiration and Research in Science and Technology is Dean Kamen’s brainchild to inspire young people to pursue careers in science as well as promoting science in our schools. What started in New Hampshire with one school has blossomed into an international phenomenon with teams on every continent.

Some of the local teams competing at this event were; Ballard High School’s Team 2928 Viking Robotics, Seattle Lutheran’s Team 1258 SeaBot, Evergreen/TEC High School’s Team 2942 Panda Robotics, Highline High School’s Team 3574 High Tekerz, and Aviation High School’s Team 1983 Skunkworks Robotics from Des Moines.

On the playing surface six teams forming two alliances, three on the blue side and three on the red side, work to outscore the other alliance. Deductions in points can happen when a robot interferes by making physical contact with a bot from a competing alliance.

Points can be scored by sinking baskets worth three points for the top basket, two points for the intermediate basket, or one point for the lowest basket. Points can also be attained by balancing a robot on an alliance bridge, either blue, or red. The bridges are see saw like, so each bot has an arm or other device to push down on one end of the bridge so the robot can drive onto it. Even more points could be scored by balancing two, or even three bots on the alliance’s colored bridge. This is no easy task as the team controllers are on the opposite end of the playing surface of their bots point scoring area. Depth perception is critical for each robots driver when trying to get more than one bot on a bridge.

When the elimination rounds began on Saturday afternoon the Skunkworks team from Des Moines Aviation High School looked like the team to beat as their robot sank three pointer after three pointer and in one round scored a record seventy three points, however Ballard High School’s team became masters of balancing on the fulcrum bridges. In the final round this proved to be the decisive tactic when Skunkworks in the red alliance missed a shot, and as time expired, the Viking Robotics team joined forces with one of the blue alliance teams to perform a double balance of two robots on one bridge. The final score was 68 to 67 for the blue alliance and a Ballard victory.

The Olympic Regional winners from the 2012 Seattle FIRST Robotics Competition were;

The blue coalition with Balled HS wins by one point over the red coalition with Aviation HS 68-67.

The red coalition and Aviation HS was awarded second place.

The Highline HS High Tekerz won the 2012 Regional Chairman’s Award and Jacob Ebby of the High Tekerz is the Regional FIRST Deans list Finalist.

There is also an elementary school robotics program called FIRST LEGO League.

If your school is not involved in FIRST contact your school’s principle to start a team. This is a fantastic way to get young minds involved in science and technology.

From more information about FIRST, the completions overall results (including the other coalition and regional winners), and getting your school involved, go to- www.FIRST.org