April 15, 2005

Jonas Dino
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Phone: 650/604-5612 or 650/604-9000
Email:jonas.dino@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 05_25AR

NASA SPONSORS EIGHTH ANNUAL BOTBALL ROBOTICS COMPETITION

Northern California middle and high school robotics teams will 
demonstrate their robotics skills at the eighth annual northern 
California Botball Robotics Tournament at the Leavey Center on the 
Santa Clara University campus on Saturday, April 23, 2005. 
Head-to-head double elimination rounds start at approximately 2:00 
p.m. PDT.

News media are invited to attend the tournament.
Date: Saturday, April 23, 2005
Schedule:
Seeding rounds: 10:00 a.m. PDT
Double elimination rounds: 2:00 p.m. PDT (approximate)
Awards ceremony: 5:30 p.m. PDT (approximate)
Who: 33 middle and high school robotics teams from 24 Bay Area and 
northern California schools.
Where: The Leavey Center at Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino 
Real, Santa Clara, Calif.
Admission: Free and open to the public

Botball is the robotics program designed to engage students in 
learning science, technology, engineering and math. Students are 
given seven weeks to design, build and program two microcontrolled 
robots with LEGO structures to compete in a fast-paced regional 
tournament. This season, one microcontroller includes 
high-performance vision processing.

By building robots, students are exposed to high-tech equipment, gain 
knowledge of project design and computer programming, and develop 
team problem-solving skills. Unlike many robotics competitions, 
robots are programmed in the 'C' programming language and use no 
remote controls. Game play is based solely on the skill of the team 
programmers. Students also can compete in the creation of Web sites 
to document their team progress.

The tournament is presented by the KISS Institute for Practical 
Robotics, Norman, Okla., in conjunction with Santa Clara University, 
Santa Clara, Calif., and NASA's Robotics Education Project at NASA 
Ames Research Center, located in California's Silicon Valley. The 
NASA Robotics Education Project is supported through NASA's Science 
Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. and is 
directed by David Lavery, program executive for Solar System 
Exploration.

For information about the middle and high school teams participating 
in the eighth annual northern California tournament, visit:



http://www.botball.org/php/standard/registered.html?RegionIdx=109


For more information about the NASA Robotics Education Project and 
Botball, visit:



http://robotics.nasa.gov




http://www.botball.org


For more information about the KISS Institute, visit:



http://www.kpir.org

	
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