How many hours do you think it takes to build a working robot?
Okay, I don’t know the answer either, but I know the people who do!
Ten Michigan high school teams, and one Canadian team, are “goin’ for the gold” at the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition Championship in the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Missouri, April 24-27.
Spurred on with team names like “Killer Bees,” Bionic Barons” and “More Martians,” these dedicated “techies” happily sacrificed hundreds of hours of spare time to conceive, design and build some very sophisticated robots.
It was a true team effort. The students supplied six weeks of creative sweat equity to get their creations from the drawing board to competition-ready status. Chrysler Group employees volunteered as mentors and coordinators, and more than $185,000 in grants from The Chrysler Foundation, including a $30,000 boost to cover participating in the championship, helped make the teams’ dreams come true.
The students will put their robots through some extraordinary paces for the championship title, competing in a high-tech version of disc golf that calls for ‘flying’ as many discs into their goals as possible in just under three minutes, then climbing a pyramid for extra points.