<
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/07/1200615634/meet-the-high-school-sport-that-builds-robots-and-the-next-generation-of-enginee>
"On a Thursday night inside a NASA hangar in Mountain View, Calif., a group of
teenage girls cluster around two large tables strewn with wires, hex wrenches
and laptops. As they work, a machine rises in their midst — a black aluminum
frame loaded with advanced tech like high-powered brushless motors and 3D
vision systems. Say hello to the Space Cookies, aka FIRST Robotics Competition
Team 1868, a Girl Scout troop that builds tournament robots.
Right now, over 3,300 high school and community teams like the Space Cookies
are assembling around the world in anticipation of the upcoming season of the
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics
Competition. This giant non-profit/sport league started in 1989 as a local
program to inspire New Hampshire teens in engineering and technology fields. It
has grown to encompass more than 83,000 high schoolers in 31 countries.
Through the fall, students meet outside the school day to develop skills in
areas like component milling, gear ratios and Java coding as tools for
problem-solving, gamesmanship and intelligence — both human and artificial.
Local engineering and IT professionals volunteer as mentors, but older students
also teach their younger teammates.
Some teams take over corridors of classrooms, while others meet in neighborhood
garages. Some teams are like student-led companies, with separate departments
for public outreach and merch. Depending on their goals and expectations,
students may participate from a few hours to a few dozen hours a week.
They are ramping up for January, when FIRST will reveal the season's game
rules, kicking off a feverish eight weeks of designing, fabricating and
programming fresh machines. Then it's onto the three-day regional tournaments
that serve as qualifiers for April's world FIRST Championship in Houston."
Via
Future Crunch:
https://futurecrunch.com/226-eighth-continent/
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
