The robots are coming

FIRST competition to be held at Thomas & Mack

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It's a familiar scene, especially in March.

A player takes control of a ball, shoots and scores. The crowd goes wild. But it might not be a traditional March Madness moment. It could just as easily be a great play at the FIRST Robotics competition, to be held Thursday through Saturday on UNLV's campus.

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, or FIRST, is a nonprofit organization with the goal of getting children and teens interested in math and science.

More than 2,000 students on teams from as far away as Hawaii and Massachusetts will converge on the Thomas & Mack Arena to see how the robots they created will fare against others. This is the second year that FIRST has had a regional contest in Las Vegas, although many Las Vegas area teams have competed for years in other states. There were 38 teams in last year's Las Vegas event and there are 43 registered for this year.

Many teams are from local schools. In fact, Cimarron-Memorial High School's team took first place in the Las Vegas regional competition last year.

Retired engineer Jean Hoppert organized the Las Vegas event. She said the goal is to motivate students in math and science in a fun environment.

"We want to make it like sports for the mind," she said.

Each year, the exact task for the competition is kept secret until the day the parts arrive in the mail, all in order to avoid any unfair advantage among competitors. Teams have exactly six weeks to create a robot that can win at the task for that specific year.

This year, robots will play a basketball/soccer-type game where teams must get as many balls as possible into various goals. There is a goal set about 8 feet in the air and a goal raised only slightly from ground level.

All schools in the competition receive a basic robotics kit and then they are to create a functioning robot with what is in the kit, plus items they choose to add, within certain guidelines. The kits come with instructions on included items such as software, motors, wheels and a camera.

Many teams entering the contest for the first year are focused on the lower goal, where robots push a ball on the floor into the basket. More advanced robots will be able to pick a ball up off the floor and lob it into a basket in the air.

Seniors Chris Lester and Brandon Makridis and junior Sergio Flores are members of the Robotics Club at Del Sol High School. They created a machine they call The Enterprise, which will be aiming for the lower goals in the game.

Physics teacher Alvin Echeverria and chemistry teacher Shawn Cruchet coached the students on the project.

They're not expecting a championship in their first year.

"We've already achieved our goal. We have a robot that moves and does what it's supposed to," Cruchet said.

Teams each had to raise the initial $6,000, and many also landed sponsors for extras and improvements.

Del Sol and many other teams got their basic sponsorship from NASA. They also had various smaller donations.

"It's fun to build something with NASA on it," Echeverria said.

Team members spent lots of time reading the instruction manuals on various components. They said driving the robot was more difficult than getting it to shoot baskets.

The longest days for the Del Sol Robotics Club were from 2 to 10 p.m.

Basic High School students also said they spent a lot of time after school, but both teams said they enjoyed the process.

"The best part was seeing the first time something worked right," Lester said.

The teachers said they also were happy with the process. They said the students learned and had fun.

"I've been teaching for about 19 years and this is probably the most fun I've had with the kids ever," said William Fitzgerald, the teacher who supervised the Basic High School team.

Hoppert said she loves to see students get interested in math and science.

"If you talk to the kids about what they get out of it, that's the most telling," she said.

Students said building a robot gave them a chance to work in-depth on something they're interested in anyway.

"It gave a really good insight on what engineering is about," said Austin Barnum, a senior at Basic High School.

Hoppert also hopes younger students will watch the competition and get interested in math and science like the high school students who actually participate.

"All these kids are getting excited about math and science and that's inspiring," Hoppert said.

It takes a number of volunteers to run the competition. For more information about volunteering, log on to www.usfirst.org and click on the link "For Volunteers."

The FIRST Robotics competition is free and open to the public.

Preliminary rounds will be ongoing on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings. The final matches will begin at 1 p.m. Saturday.