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FIRST Robotics Competition: Like Battlebots with Fewer Saws

Posted March 19, 2007 1:58 PM

From Gizmodo:

This weekend was the FIRST robotics competition at the Javits Center here in NYC, an event where groups of students compete to see who built the best robot in the six-week competition window. How it works: The core of the high school-level FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is the design and building of a robotic competitor. Each year in early January, FIRST unveils the competition or "game" at an annual kick-off event that is beamed by NASA satellite to auditoriums all over the world. This is the first glimpse students get of the game they will have to design their robot to play. Working in teams, students have just six weeks to create their robot. They get the opportunity to work with programmable radio controls, pneumatics, motors, electrical circuits, mechanics, machining, web design, computer animation, computer assisted design, and other technologies - just like professional engineers and technologists do.

Read the whole article and watch the video

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#1

Re: FIRST Robotics Competition: Like Battlebots with Fewer Saws

03/20/2007 4:21 AM

Here in the UK we had a television based pair of programmes on Robot competitions.

One focused on tasks and the other on fighting.

Surprising or not, the former managed one series and the latter was improved and enhanced into a highly popular show called Robot Wars. It has run for many years.

Like computer games, why is it the natural way of man to enjoy fighting and killing rather than construction and building.

Hugh Mattos

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#2
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Re: FIRST Robotics Competition: Like Battlebots with Fewer Saws

03/20/2007 6:19 AM

Perhaps it is more to do with being able to cope with the unexpected - when there is a finite task, there is not the same impetus as with a task which can be subject to unknown pressures.

I have not watched Robot Wars since it moved from terrestrial TV, but what I saw up till then was: first series - many dispatate designs

from then - the tendancy to follow the best from the previous series, leading to a
"battle of the wedges with flippers"

Unless something has changed since, there will not be the same excitement about it.

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#3
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Re: FIRST Robotics Competition: Like Battlebots with Fewer Saws

03/20/2007 6:28 AM

GM1964,

My regret is that the advertisers / producers / audience will support the aggressive and destructive nature of Robot Wars, but will not support the more constructive robot designs where positive and constructive is the aim.

Hugh Mattos

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#4
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Re: FIRST Robotics Competition: Like Battlebots with Fewer Saws

03/20/2007 7:41 AM

This is true, and extends to all the car programs, too, from "Top Gear" to "Pimp my Ride" et al.

Unless there is to be an engineers' channel, which concentrates on the "green" improvements that can be undertaken - re-tuning for economy rather than speed, a DIY show dedicated to renewables.......

BUT, woudn't WE all be doing it rather than just watching?

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#5
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Re: FIRST Robotics Competition: Like Battlebots with Fewer Saws

03/20/2007 8:02 AM

Sadly I suspect you are right...

Our society seems more entertained - for example computer games - by destruction than by construction. I am only pleased occasionally to be able to find some television which focuses on the achievements and future, rather than on destruction and mayhem.

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How about a show on the World Solar Challenge!

03/20/2007 9:48 AM

I'd like to see a show (are you listening, Discovery channel?) on the World Solar Challenge, a 3000 km automotive race across Australia on solar power alone.

The Challenge started in 1987, and I think there's been at least one TV special on it in the past, but the time is right to do it again. Better yet, cover it annually like is done for the Tour de France!

Since 1987, when the cars barely made it across, the average speed completing the journey now is 100 km/h.

This year, the race starts October 21st!

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#7
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Re: How about a show on the World Solar Challenge!

03/20/2007 9:59 AM

Good call... Maybe now is the time to get all of our Radio and TV channels looking at the solutions of the green issues, rather than always dwelling on the problems

HM

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#8
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Re: How about a show on the World Solar Challenge!

03/20/2007 10:02 AM

I prefer the TV show, "Topless Darts on Ice" that a Liverpool native told me about.

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#9
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Re: How about a show on the World Solar Challenge!

03/20/2007 11:00 AM

I have never heard of it - so I presume it was just a joke.

HM

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#10
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Re: How about a show on the World Solar Challenge!

03/20/2007 11:20 AM

Actually, there used to be a such a show. I found many references to it on a variety of forums which popped up on http://www.ask.com/ with search for (using quotes) "topless darts on ice." Google didn't show anything.

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#11
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Re: How about a show on the World Solar Challenge!

03/20/2007 1:02 PM

Just one would do for starters.

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