Robots burned rubber in the ring today at the Javit's Center for the regional championship of FIRST (An acronym DISCOVER can get behind: "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology"). Keep checking in on Discoblog for a full recap of the event. For now, here is a recap in photos of the innovation, competition, and robotic mayhem that took place today among high schoolers and engineers showing off their circuitry skills. There are three objects in this game: 1) Be quick—the more laps, the more points 2) Knock down balls. 3) Pick the balls back up and place them on top of the bars or shoot them over.
A pneumatic trigger pushes the ball over the bar and racks up points for the red team.
The teams control the robots behind the safety of plexiglass with wireless joysticks. The more functions—like shooting, raising and lowering ladders, or opening and closing claws—the more complicated the control panels.
Here, the red team shows the blue how to get tall and get points while the blue team's downed bot desperately clutches onto the ball and writhes on the ground. This bot took a debilitating spill when, fully extended, it ran straight into the bars.
The red team lines up in the final round of action. This team took the title on Sunday as regional champions.
