25,000 of tomorrow’s engineers and mad scientists descended on the Georgia Dome in Atlanta this weekend. The reason: a competition sponsored by FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) that challenges these young geniuses to build robots out of Legos. The robots, built using Lego Mindstorms technology, are put through the paces in nine tasks like climbing stairs. The winner is the team that is able to guide their robot to complete the tasks in the shortest amount of time. These are clearly not the Legos we played with when we were young…
The competition and FIRST were the brainchild of serial inventor Dean Kamen who invented the Segway Human Transporter and numerous medical inventions. The purpose of the event, like all others from FIRST, is to raise the profile of science, math, engineering and technology by making them as cool as sports for today’s kids while highlighting the positive social impact of these fields. The underlying theme of this year’s competition was helping people with disabilities.
Given the increasing importance of science and technology in our lives (not too mention the fun these kids seem to be having), encouraging the next generation of Bill Gates and Thomas Edisons seems like a very good idea. We’re personally looking forward to robotic knees to replace our worn down ones…
Hi, saw this post about the FLL world festival from last year. My kids are on the Nevada state team for 2006 and I would like to correspond with a family who went last year. Lots of questions. Thanks, Michele
Posted by: Michele Tombari | January 25, 2006 at 10:54 AM
very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce
Posted by: Idetrorce | December 15, 2007 at 06:48 AM
thats it, man
Posted by: Gertieqn | March 19, 2008 at 12:37 AM