2008 FIRST Championship
The 2008 FIRST Championship event was held April 17-19 in Atlanta, GA at the Georgia Dome. I was able to travel to the event along with several other colleagues from WPI. Team 190 with students from The Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science mentored by WPI students and faculty was also there to defend their 2007 victory.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an organization devoted to promoting and encouraging young people to celebrate science and technology. There are three competitions within FIRST: FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST Tech Challenge, and FIRST Lego League. All are geared towards students in high school and younger. Over 150,000 young people are involved in the FIRST program. To learn more and get involved, visit http://www.usfirst.org.
WPI has several special connections with FIRST. Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST, was a WPI student in the 1970s and holds an honorary doctoral degree from WPI. Team 190 is one of several teams that has competed in the FIRST Robotics Competition every year since its start in 1992, and we were also one of the first schools to offer FIRST scholarships (more on that below) to students entering college. This year we have a new special partnership with FIRST. On April 17 at the Championship, FIRST announced a new control system and software library that will be used by all teams competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition. This system was developed jointly by WPI students and faculty and National Instruments.
At the FIRST Championship, at least 300 teams were in Atlanta to compete. I had the chance to walk through the pit area where the teams feverishly prepare, diagnose, and repair their robots between their rounds of competition. To say the least, it was amazing! Each team calls itself by a creative name, wears crazy outfits, and works on their robots with amazing expertise. I have included some photos I took in the pit area (click photos to enlarge and read more on site; syndicated feeds will display photos only).
I mentioned above that WPI was one of the first institutions to offer scholarships to FIRST participants. We continue to offer scholarships, and they are some of the most generous available. Each year we offer a full tuition, four year scholarship to one student involved in the FIRST program. We have some other awards as well. I spent the day on Thursday and Friday at the competition in scholarship row where students, parents, mentors, and other guests stopped to get information about WPI and hear about our scholarship opportunities. A good number of admitted students, including all five of the 2008 FIRST scholarship initial recipients, stopped by to chat and get more information too!
To complete the event, WPI hosted a reception at the Ritz-Carlton Atlanta for prospective students, admitted students, alumni, and other members of the WPI community. President Dennis Berkey gave a welcome, and Ken Stafford, director of the Robotics Resource Center, spoke about the Robotics Engineering degree at WPI. Some students stayed for over two hours chatting with the WPI staff, faculty, and alumni! Photos of the event are included below.
I hope that your FIRST season went well if you are on a team. If not, visit the FIRST Web site to find out more information about getting a team started. Let me know what your best memory of the season was in the comments!
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