About FIRST

FIRST is an acronym for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology”. FIRST was started was started in 1992 by inventor Dean Kamen in a high school gymnasium with 28 teams. The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals with students to solve an engineering design problem in an powerful and competitive way. The program is a life-changing, career-molding experience and a lot of fun.

It starts with a six week challenge in January and February to build a robot that competes in a game that is given out at the beginning of the competition. In March we travel to regional competitions where we compete with teams from the local area, and sometimes with teams from around the world. From there, we move to the championship held in the Georgia Dome, Atlanta Georgia with more then 10,000 students, 344 teams, and six playing fields.

In 2007, the competition will reach over 28,000 high-school-aged young people on over 1,125 teams in 33 regional events. Tteams came from Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Israel, Mexico, the U.K., and almost every U.S. state. The competitions are high-tech spectator sporting events, the result of lots of focused brainstorming, real-world teamwork, dedicated mentoring, project timelines, and deadlines.

FIRST aims to get high school students excited about engineering and science. Paired up with engineers the high schoolers see them in a new light, the engineers are raised to a celebrity status, complete with autographs.

Students are given a 6 week window to overcome obstacles and cooperate as a team to efficiently achieve a common goal.

To learn more about the FIRST Foundation, visit their website at www.usfirst.org.

Taken from www.usfirst.org.

The Game

The 2008 Game: Overdrive

Overdrive is a new type of game with new game modes, new human interactions, and a whole lot of new fun. Teams must race around a track while keeping control of a trackballs - 40 inch diameter balls - to score points. FIRST introduced a new game mode called Hybrid that allows human interaction with the robot during the traditional autonomous period. The new position of RoboCoach can send objectives or commands to the robot during the first 15 seconds of the game, allowing for finer control than what purely autonomous code offers.

The match begins with two alliances on the field. The red and blue alliance each have 3 randomly chosen teams so that 6 total robots are on the field. Robots must start in the corners of their home stretch. The match begins with a 15 second Hybrid mode, where RoboCoaches can send objectives to the robot via infrared, ultrasonic, or visible light. RoboCoaches can only send 4 unique commands or objectives to the robot during this time. From this the robot must execute different routines in the autonomous code to acheive the goals. After the 15 seconds is up the teleoperated period begins. Drivers now take control of the robot for the remaining two minutes.

There are several ways to score points in Overdrive, and they differ for hybrid mode and teleoperated mode.

Overdrive offers teams several ways to compete which should offer an interesting mix of strategies at competitions.