Ever wonder what it would be like to have the robotic maid from “The Jetsons” at your beck and call? Creating real-life versions of the cartoon Rosie may not be the goal of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics competition, but it’s not that far off.
Each year, hundreds of high school students work with mentors to assemble robots for the FIRST competition, which tests them on a variety of obstacle courses and challenges.
On Friday and Saturday, March 23 and 24, San Diego will host its first regional event “” a precursor to the national competition in April “” at the ipayOne Center.
Thirty High Tech High International students from grades 9 through 12 will show off their mechanical creation while facing more than 40 teams from California, Michigan, Colorado, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona and Hawaii.
The High Tech team, named the “Holy Cows,” formed in September 2006 to meet the registration deadline, although work on the actual robot could not begin until January, when FIRST unveiled the challenge concept.
“It’s really hard to design anything until we know what the challenge is,” said David Berggren, teacher of principles of engineering at High Tech High International and instructor for the school’s team.
High Tech High has participated in the FIRST robot competition for the past two years. In 2006, the team finished 22nd out of 46 participants at the regional competition in Las Vegas. At the finals, High Tech finished ninth out of the 350 teams.
Berggren explained that the challenge changes drastically from year to year. The 2007 high school concept, “Rack ‘N’ Roll,” calls for robots to hand inflate colored tubes on pegs configured in rows and columns on a 10-foot-tall center “rack” structure. Extra points are scored by robots being in their home zone and lifted more than 4 inches off the ground by another robot before the end of the 2-minute and 15-second match.
According to Berggren, the game consists of 15 seconds of autonomous play, meaning preprogrammed operation, and two minutes of radio-controlled operation.
School teams are randomly selected to form a three-robot alliance and play against another three-robot alliance in order to promote professionalism and teamwork, he explained.
Eight other San Diego schools will join High Tech High at the regional event, including The Midnight Mechanics from The Preuss School at UCSD, Funky Monkeys of San Diego High School, Hammer Heads of Kearny High School and Devil Duckies from Madison High School.
According to Berggren, eight of the 46 schools competing will be chosen to participate in the finals Saturday after 1 p.m. Each finalist will get the opportunity to pick two other teams to create a three-robot alliance.
The winner of the regional event at ipayOne will be invited to the national competition April 12 to 14 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Winners of the chairman’s award, rookie all-star award and engineering inspiration award at the regional events are also invited to the championship. Additionally, teams previously invited to the championship can sign up for the event without qualifying at a regional competition.
“It’s kind of confusing,” Berggren said of the championship eligibility criteria.
FIRST isn’t only for high school students. A Lego League “” available for students ages 9 to 14 “” also builds robots; however, the younger kids make their creations out of Legos.
“They’re building with Legos, but building fully fabricated robots like we do,” Berggren said.
The VEX Challenge is a mid-level robotics competition with more accessible and affordable robotics kits.
According to Berggren, it costs between $4,000 and $6,000 for the FIRST robotics regional and national competitions and $1,000 to $3,000 to build the robot.
“I think our budget last year, without travel expenses, was $20,000 to $25,000. All that money was a lot of fund-raising and grant writing,” Berggren said.
Students can learn about and work with robots in the FIRST Lego League and FIRST VEX Challenge robotics adventure area. Interactive demonstrations will take place Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon.
The event, held at 3500 Sports Arena Blvd., is open to the public. Admission is free.
For more information, visit www.regional.sandiegorobotics.com or www.usfirst.org.
More information on the Holy Cows is available at www.team1538.com.