NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, both in Huntsville, Alabama, will host the 2015 FIRST — For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology — Robotics kickoff event Jan. 3 at the Davidson Center for Space Exploration.
Eleven high school teams throughout Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi are scheduled to pick up their robotic kits and learn what the requirements are for this year’s national contest.
FIRST is a national organization to inspire young people to pursue careers in science and technical fields. Inventor Dean Kamen founded the event in Manchester, New Hampshire, in 1989.
During the event, student teams will receive an identical kit of parts including motors, batteries, a control system, personal computer and a mix of automation components. Instructions are not included. This requires students to rely upon their own teamwork, ingenuity and creativity when building their robot. Working with adult mentors, the students will have six weeks to design, build, program and test a robot that meets the requirements for the 2015 engineering challenge, which will be revealed in a NASA TV broadcast during the kickoff.
Once the robots are built, teams will program and remotely control their robots during a series of regional and district competition rounds that begin in February and lead to the FIRST Championship in April.
NASA, through its Robotics Alliance Project, provides grants for high school teams and support for FIRST Robotics competitions around the country to address the critical national shortage in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — or the STEM fields.
Saturday Agenda Jan. 3
8:20 a.m. Davidson Center doors open at U.S. Space & Rocket Center
8:45 a.m. Digital Theater doors open
9 a.m. Welcome
9:20 a.m. Concession break
11 a.m. Kit of parts to be distributed
The 2015 FIRST participating teams are:
STATE CITY TEAM NAME
Alabama Athens Rockets
Alabama Arab Dragon Slayers
Alabama Jasper Gearheads
Alabama Madison Mad Rockers
Alabama Oxford Omega
Alabama Huntsville G.R.E.A.T.
Alabama Somerville Morgan County Mech Tech
Alabama Dutton Jackson Robotics
Tennessee Fayetteville F.E.A.R.
Tennessee Franklin RoboKomodos
Mississippi Columbus Patriobots
News media interested in covering the event should contact Tim Hall at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center at 256-701-0916, or Angela Storey of the Marshall Public & Employee Communications Office at 256-544-0034 no later than 3 p.m. Friday, Jan. 2.
More information about this Kickoff event is available at:
http://rocketcenter.com/01.03.15/first-robotic-competition-launch
More information about FIRST programs and competitions is available at:
More information about the Marshall Space Flight Center is available at:
More information about the U.S. Space & Rocket Center is available at:
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USSRC Contact:
Tim Hall
256-722-5609
U.S. Space & Rocket Center
timh@spacecamp.com
Marshall Newsroom Contact
Angela Storey
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0632
angela.d.storey@nasa.gov