FIRST Robotics Crowns Great Lakes Champs
You can read all you want to about a FIRST Robotics competition.
About how it brings teams of bright high school students together with science and engineering mentors. About how it shows them that science and engineering careers can be a lot of fun.
About how it celebrates science and technology -- and teamwork and perserverance and sportsmanship -- in an atmosphere reminiscent of a state championship athletic event. (Heck, even better, more like college -- with professional lighting, sound and announcers.) And about the way it celebrates and teaches skills that most students are likely to actually USE in their REAL LIVES, as opposed to the finer points of the goal-line formation or the pick and roll or the hanging curve ball, which only a tiny fraction of high school students will ever use in their professional lives.
But to really understand it, you have to go to a big regional competition. Which is exactly how I spent my Saturday at Eastern Michigan University, with about 3,000 other proudly nerdy robot fans at FIRST Robotics' Great Lakes Regional.
This year's FIRST game, called Overdrive, saw robots racing around a 27-by-52-foot racetrack. Three robot teams make up a "red alliance," while on the other side three other teams make up a "blue alliance." To make the game more complicated, over the middle of the racetrack was an overpass on which were placed four giant Pilates balls, two for either alliance. Alliances earned bonus points for tossing the balls over the overpass, and at the end by placing balls back on the overpass. To keep the competition from becoming a simple demolition derby, there were penalties for excessive contact between robots -- some contact is allowed, but intentional ramming isn't.
For the first day and a half of round robin competition the alliances are thrown together on a random basis. The top eight teams in this round robin phase automatically advance to the quarterfinals.
Then, at noon Saturday, there's a bit of psychological drama, as the top eight teams ask two other teams apiece to join their alliance.
After that matchup session, there was an hour break before the quarterfinals began at 1 p.m. I spent that time in the pits, mostly with Team 27, called Team Rush, from the Clarkston schools and a math and science academy at Clarkston called OSMTech. This large group of several dozen students learns from mentor engineers and machinists. (That's the team pictured.)
In the end, after a day of competition that left judges and competitors exhausted and the robots sputtering, an alliance of Milford-Lakeland, Romulus and Novi high schools won the regional.
They're now eligible for the national finals in Atlanta next month.
Runners-up were an alliance of Ypsilanti Willow Run, Utica and Madison Heights Bishop Foley.
In all 63 teams competed in the regional -- mostly from Michigan, but there were also teams from Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Santiago, Chile in South America.
Teams get six weeks to build their robot after receiving details on the current year's game in a kickoff video simulcast to sites around the country. The teams also pick up their starter parts at the January kickoff. All teams must stop working on their robots and lock them up after six weeks, eliminating any advantage from entering a later regional competition.
The folks from Team Rush told me it takes about $60,000 a year to field a competitive team, making finding sponsors crucial for most schools.
The games are designed by scientific luminaries such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Woody Flowers and NASA exploratory robotics director Dave Lavery.
The Great Lakes Regional was the last of four regionals held in Michigan this month. The first was for rookie teams only played at Kettering University; the second was the Detroit Regional at Wayne State; and the third was at Grand Valley State University March 20-22.
The Great Lakes Regional tends to draw traditionally strong teams – and in five of the last six years, an International Champion has come from the state of Michigan and gone through the Great Lakes Regional to get there.
Youth participants also compete for other awards, including for community service, marketing, web site design and computer animation – plus the ultimate Chairman’s Award, won Saturday by Team T3, a team comprised of students from a variety of Oakland County schools, including the Waterford district, Holly, Clarkston and Brandon.
CONGRATULATIONS TO KYLE HUGHES AND "TEAM RUSH" AT OSMTECH AT CLARKSTON HIGH SCHOOL!
More about the competition overall at www.usfirst.org.
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