January 5, 2012

Jeannette P. Owens 
Media Relations Office 
216-433-2990
Jeannette.P.Owens@nasa.gov
MEDIA ADVISORY: 12-001

THE 2012 FIRST ROBOTICS COMPETITION KICKS OFF SATURDAY

CLEVELAND --The FIRST Robotics Competition kickoff marks the beginning 
of the season for high school students to design and build a robot to 
compete in a tournament against a field of competitors. NASA, the 
largest sponsor of the FIRST Robotics Competition, will broadcast the 
kickoff for over 100 local students at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 7, 
at Cuyahoga Community College, Unified Technologies Center. The event 
will air nationwide on NASA Television from Southern New Hampshire 
University in Manchester.

FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, 
is a long-standing challenge to inspire curiosity and create interest 
in science, technology, engineering and mathematics among high school 
students. The event gives students the opportunity to design and 
compete a robot that can perform specific functions. FIRST also gives 
students a crucial mentoring experience with professionals, who help 
them explore solutions to robotics problems and understand real-world 
challenges faced by engineers and researchers. 

During the broadcast, FIRST founder Dean Kamen and designers of the 
annual challenge will reveal the competition scenario for 2012. This 
kicks off a six-week design and building frenzy for more than 2,000 
teams, or 50,000 students and engineering mentors in this year's 
competition.

Each year, FIRST presents a new robotics competition scenario with 
twists and nuances to challenge both rookie and veteran teams. Each 
team receives a kit of parts (a common set of parts) and has six 
weeks to construct a robot based on the team's interpretation of the 
game scenario. Other than dimension, weight and safety restrictions, 
the look and function of the robots is up to each individual team.

After six weeks of creating a functional robot, the students will 
remotely control the robots in competition rounds on the field at the 
FIRST Buckeye Regional Robotics Competition, March 22-24, 2012, at 
the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio. 

The schools attending the kickoff are:


Amherst Steele High School  Amherst, Ohio  
Avon High School Avon, Ohio  
Beachwood High School Beachwood, Ohio  
Berea High School Berea, Ohio  
Cleveland Metropolitan School District Cleveland, Ohio  
East Technical High School Cleveland, Ohio  
EHOVE Career Center Milan, Ohio  
Erie School District Erie, Pa.  
Girard High School Girard, Ohio  
Hathaway Brown High School Shaker Heights, Ohio  
Highland High School Medina, Ohio  
Knox County 4H Council Corbin, Ky.  
Lorain High School Lorain  
Midpark High School Middleburg Heights, Ohio  
Orange Schools Pepper Pike, Ohio  
St. Edward High School Lakewood, Ohio  
St. Ignatius High School Cleveland, Ohio  
Tallmadge High School Tallmadge, Ohio  
Williams County Family YMCA Bryan, Ohio  
Chaney STEM High School, Youngstown Early  
College Robotics & Youngstown City Schools Youngstown, Ohio  

NASA Glenn engineers and scientists participate with many of these 
teams as technical participants and mentors to the students. Through 
these mentoring activities, Glenn engineers are able to directly 
share their expertise and experiences to the nation's next generation 
of technical leaders.

This year, 45 regional competitions will take place across the 
country, along with four additional international competitions in 
March and April. The FIRST Championship competition will be held in 
St. Louis, Mo., in April. 

The program was founded in 1989 by Kamen to inspire an appreciation of 
science and technology in young people, their schools and 
communities. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST is a non-profit 
organization that designs accessible, innovative programs to build 
self-confidence, knowledge and life skills while motivating young 
people to pursue academic opportunities. 

News media wishing to attend the kickoff at the Unified Technologies 
Center should contact Jeannette Owens to register at (216) 433-2990 
by 4:30 p.m. on Jan. 6. 

For more information on the Buckeye Regional FIRST Robotics 
Competition, visit:



http://www.oai.org/firstbuckeye/kickoff.html


For additional information about FIRST, visit: 



http://www.usfirst.org


For the NASA Television downlink, schedule and streaming video 
information, visit:



http://www.nasa.gov/ntv


For more information on NASA and agency programs on the web, visit:



http://www.nasa.gov

	
-end-