03.30.13
Photos By Elisa Vietri
The stadium seats were full, groups had congregated wearing their team shirts, the music was blaring, faces painted and fists pumping at every winning score. No, this wasn’t a college sporting event, this was the Buckeye Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. High school teams came together from across the region to show off their technological savvy and mechanical prowess. There was a definite rockstar-like excitement in the air as the teams competed in a the game called Ultimate Ascent.
From the official website: “Ultimate AscentSM is played by two competing alliances on a flat, 27×54 foot field. Each Alliance consists of three robots, and they compete to score as many discs into their goals as they can during a two (2)-minute and fifteen (15)-second match. The higher the goal in which the disc is scored, the more points the Alliance receives.
“The match begins with a fifteen (15)-second Autonomous Period in which robots operate independently of driver inputs. Discs scored during this period are worth additional points. For the remainder of the match, drivers control robots and try to maximize their alliance score by scoring as many goals as possible. The match ends with robots attempting to climb up pyramids located near the middle of the field. Each robot earns points based on how high it climbs.”
It was super cool seeing these young people excel in their specialty in front of a screaming crowd of peers, under the big lights. You walked away with re-stored hope in the future of technology and science and in the future of young people.
One Response to “PHOTOSTREAM: Buckeye Regional FIRST Robotics Competition”
robert
YES! GLAD still continuing…a FEW ed institutes do this stuff… CUYAHOGA VALLEY TECH ctr is one of em…NOT trying to do a plug for them…but THEY HAD studies in that…I THINK TRI C has some classes toooo…CERTAINLY in electronics…same with LOCAL campuses of ITT… GOT THINKBOX down at CWRU….HOPEFULLY turns into OUR version of MEDIALAB that MIT has….
WISH the best to this crew…. GUESS A LOT more programs,cheaper gear n parts running that folks can use to develop robots and other…. SEEMS LOT more of these contests out there…. hey..is the Wave of the Future….