Viewfinder: Robotics

FIRST is the acronym for Inspirational Recognition of Science and Technology. The Gwinnett Convention Center in Duluth recently hosted the 2011 Peachtree Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. The competition celebrated its 20th season with teams from 48 high schools in 10 states, and remember, this was only the regional competition. Thirty-six teams represented Georgia high schools from Alpharetta to Warner Robins.

The competition grew from its humble beginnings of one event with 28 teams in a small high school gym in Manchester, NH, to nearly 60 events with more than 2,000 participating teams involving close to 250,000 young people, all vying for the chance to go to the National Robotics Competition in St. Louis.

The Gwinnett Convention Center was a bee hive of activity filled with exuberant team spirit. There were team T-shirts, buttons, hats, costumes, logos, a recycling area, and mechanical robots. 

Teams had to make robots they constructed perform tasks to accrue points. I was impressed with this gathering of intelligent, honorable and organized students.

As one volunteer stated: "It's not about building robots. It's about cooperating, building functioning teams and learning multiple engineering disciplines, methodologies, industry relations, and community involvement."