03.01.

07

Lindsay Crouch
757-864-3189

RELEASE: 07-015

FIRST ROBOTS INVADE RICHMOND FOR WEEKEND COMPETITION

RICHMOND, Va. - Teamwork. That's the word of the weekend for the more
than 1,000 high school students who spent weeks working together and
have traveled to Richmond, Va., to prove that their robot is the one
to beat this year.

This annual robotics competition - called For Inspiration and

Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) - will be rolling March
2 and 3 at Virginia Commonwealth University's Siegel Center and is
open to the public free of charge.

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The 66 teams spent today making final adjustments to their robots and
sending their creations through the course on practice runs,
preparing for the real competition tomorrow and Saturday.

FIRST Robotics challenges teams of high school students and their

mentors to design, assemble and test a robot capable of performing a
specified task. The teams have only six weeks, a standard "kit of
parts" and a common set of rules.

teams must use their robots to either pick up inner tubes and hang
them "tic-tac-toe-style" on a metal rack or they can use their ramps
and strength to lift opposing robots off the ground.
According to an independent survey conducted by Brandeis University's
Center for Youth and Communities, FIRST Robotics Competition
participants are more than three times as likely to major in
engineering than non-FIRST students with similar backgrounds and
academic experiences. Also according to this survey, the FIRST
participants are roughly 10 times as likely to have had an
apprenticeship, internship or co-op job in their freshman year of
college and significantly more likely to expect to achieve a
post-graduate degree.

"I definitely plan to use what I've learned here in the future," said
Mike Stevens, from Grafton High School, in Yorktown, Va. "I'm going
to pursue a robotics career at Virginia Tech. It's like a rolling
ball - I've got the momentum going right now and engineering is one
of my passions, so I'm continuing to roll with it."

FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, the inventor of Segway Human
Transporter. According to Kamen, the vision for FIRST is "to create a
world where science and technology are celebrated... where young
people dream of becoming science and technology heroes."

This seventh annual Virginia FIRST Competition is sponsored by NASA

Langley and Virginia Commonwealth University. It is one of 37
regional competitions in the U.S., Brazil, Canada and Israel. The
national competition will be held April 12-14 in Atlanta, Ga.

FIRST Schedule Highlights

Friday, March 2:
9 a.m. -- Opening Ceremonies
9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. -- Seeding Matches
4:30 p.m. -- Awards Ceremony
Saturday, March 3:
9 a.m. -- Opening Ceremonies
9:20 a.m. - 11:45 p.m. -- Seeding Matches
1 - 3 p.m. -- Final Matches
3 p.m. -- Awards Ceremony

Video available on request.

For more information on research at NASA, visit:

align="center">www.nasa.gov

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