02.15.11

Amy Johnson
757-864-7022/ 757-272-9859
amy.johnson@nasa.govMEDIA ADVISORY: 11-011

MEDIA INVITED TO WATCH AS TEENS DEMONSTRATE HIGH-TECH ROBOTS

HAMPTON, Va. -- News media are invited to watch as tech-savvy students 
display their hard work with a robot demonstration at the New 
Horizons Regional Education Center in Hampton Thursday, Feb. 17.

Instead of watching TV or playing video games during their free time, 
the 53 members of the FIRST Robotics team -- the NASA Knights – have 
spent nearly every day after school and on the weekends building and 
programming a robot to compete in the FIRST Robotics engineering game 
called LOGO Motion at a regional tournament in Georgia next month.

LOGO Motion involves building a robot and mini-bot that can move and 
climb as well as position inflatable tubes and symbols on pegs, 
making up the FIRST logo. The higher up an inflatable logo letter or 
tube is placed, the more points the team scores. At the end of the 
game, the main robot must deploy a mini-bot that will climb to the 
top of a nine-foot pole in under 10 seconds. The first mini-bot to 
the top gets the most points.

To learn more about the 2011 Logo Motion<sup>&#8482;</sup> game, 
visit:

<div align="center">www.usfirst.org</div> 
The NASA Knights are the second oldest team in Virginia and got 
started with the help of NASA's Langley Research Center in 1997. The 
team has made it to the national competition every year since 1998.

Since 1992 FIRST Robotics has encouraged high school students to use 
their engineering and psychological skills to tackle a robotic 
challenge that is presented in the form of a game.

Media are invited to watch the NASA Knights demo their robot during an 
open house event from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17, at New Horizons 
Regional Education Center at 520 Butler Farm Road in Hampton. 
Interested media should contact Amy Johnson at 757-864-7022 or 
757-272-9859.

For more information about the NASA Knights, visit:

<div align="center">www.team122.org</div> 
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