U.S. First 2001 Competition Begins 84
Borodir writes: "Technically it's just FIRST now, but this is an awesome competition for high school students, in which they build robots that compete at a national level. Over the last couple of years, this competition has really been growing, they now have over 500 teams. The idea behind the competition is to encourage students to go into some form of engineering, the students even write their own code for their robots. "
Cutting Edge Web Site (Score:1)
Wait a minute, ...
http://www.usfirst.org/whatis.html [usfirst.org] is (c) 1996
Perhaps they need a competition for someone to write an 'include footer' for their site...
It's fun... (Score:1)
EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:3)
Ryan
Re:How long.... (Score:1)
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
You can code some pretty neat features that ease operator burden, but you can only go so far. The provided microcontroller is based on the Parallax Basic STAMP II, and you run into it's limitations (32 bytes for variables, no interrupts, slow execution, no negative numbers) very fast. 2/3 the effort in coding routines was spend figuring out how to make them work on the thing.
High cost barrier (Score:1)
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
Ryan
international robot competition (Score:2)
Terrible experience if there's no support (Score:2)
As a result, I felt like an outsider no matter how much time I put into it. I never felt like a part of the team doing the project.
As it turned out, the college students & our teacher did most of the work in design & construction. We got little say in what went on. When it came time to decide who would drive the thing, it came down to myself and one other person (because very few other people would committ to making the weekend trip to New Hampshire); The college students were given the decision, and they picked him over me because they'd seen him more. Well, gee, sorry guys, I had things outside this project to do. I held off on getting a part-time after school/weekend job (which I needed, to cover the costs of recently getting my driver's license) for this project, apparently that wasn't enough.
When it came time to go to the competition (there was only one event at the time, not the regional/national thing like now), very few people from my school went, again because of lack of support from the school; They counted it as an absence against me, and there was no assistance in paying for hotel rooms. Even worse, only a couple of the college students went, and they're the ones who knew everything about the robot because they were given free reign (as explained above).
A few years later, my brother got involved with FIRST at the same school. By then they'd gotten a corporate sponsor instead, the high schoolers were put in the driver's seat, and I think everyone was much more interested because they were able to actually do something.
Great Time (Score:1)
CanadaFirst (Score:1)
The team I led last year will not be competing again even though we came third becuase of political squabling between the two schools that worked together and lazy teachers. This is a project I'm willing to give 20 hours a week for 8 weeks and it will not go ahead because some teacher does not want to give 6 hours a week. I'm hoping to get it going next year but it looks doubtful.
The conclusion to this rant is that CanadaFIRST exists, it is a lot of fun and lots can be learned (even if there is no CS or even EE stuff mechanics is fun and working in a group with a challenge like that is very rewarding and educational to say the least), politics and laziness will be getting in the way of 15+ students for enjoying this.
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
Canada FIRST (Score:1)
Little do we expect, when we acquire the application package it tells us that we need to hand the Canada FIRST people 5000 dollars just so we can compete in the contest!! It turned out that this entrance fee is used to buy the materials and parts the organization provides us, and our team did not pay for it the previous year because it was waived as the "first time entry deal"! The news was such a shock to us; it had already been almost half of the school year, where were we going to fundraise 5 grand in 2, 3 months? The school obviously was not going to give us any money(it was a huge school), and there were no disgustingly wealthy kids in the club that could spit out that kind of money.
Furthermore, the so-call standardized parts the organization provides consist of such things as 3 regular, dc powered motors, a rc control kit (including a modem) more or less a generation older, and the 2, 3 batteries they provide so that we have a standard power supply. Everything else such as wheels, wires, gears or other materials were not provided at all which means we had to go out and buy those things ourselves. All the parts provided add together would hardly cost over 1000 dollars in my opinion, consider there were no custom made components or anything like that. The robots were to be remote controlled, therefore there were no programming or any sort of logic or microprocessors involved. So where does all that money go? Afterall this organization that's responsible for the event is non-profit?
After contacting some of the other schools in the region, we reached to the same conclusion. Everyone we contacted were obviously having problems with this, and no one could explain to us why such a astronomical fee was required for entrance. Needless to say when the deadline came we did not have enough money to enter, and we all came to the conclusion that this whole competition is a scam. A look at their website at http://www.canadafirst.org confirms at least the very business-like attitude of the organization; very rich sponsorship for the competition, the selling slogans of "turning technology into sports". Despite what the page says, the nature of the competition seems much less about science and technology and more about business and sponsorship and "the use of World Wide Web"??? The two testimonials(seem like a lose-weight ad) are nothing about the actual competition but about the use of WWW and another contest called the Science Wave.
There's Botball too! (Score:1)
Everyone is giving the same kits but they are built out of legos with the Mindstorm modules for programming. I was really impressed at that amount of detail that has to go into these robots! You compete against another team on a playing field thats about the size of a ping pong table. You have a raised field in the center where you and your opponents ping pong balls are located. There is also a tray at the center of the table. When the light goes on one of your two robots trys to capture the tray and your second robot has to position itself to grab all of its ping pong balls from the raised playing field. (your robots had to fit in a virtual box before starting so usually to get the balls you have to riase the robot). Then you need to get your robot on the tray that hopefully your other robot captured.
I don't think the cost of entry is anywhere near 15K either.. I will ask my brother if any costs came out of the students pockets, but I don't think so.
Re:exciting? (Score:1)
Steven
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:2)
EE is indeed harder, doing the control and feedback is the extent of true EE work. But I'm in my 2nd year at a reasonably difficult university, and I can't imagine requiring teams design boards or, in fact, any of the equipment they give us. FIRST is a general engineering competition, and it's amazing. If you own a company big enough to front around $25,000 to support a team (and trust me, that's the low end these days, we did it on $10,000, and it was tough. The big teams, like Motorola, it's rumored, will spend upwards of a quarter million dollars) go to your local high school and find out if they have a team. We took finished top 50 on 10K, top 25 on 23K, and last year (I'd already graduated), they finished top 15. It's a great was to support every kind of engineering, EE and CS included. (sorry, that last part was because this post was getting a little off topic).
Team 217 all the way! (Score:1)
FIRST degraded by corporate competition (Score:2)
But corporations have taken over FIRST just like they've taken over everything else. The finals are on ESPN, so they invest gobs of money/effort into the projects. I think the worst part is that, you look around the pit area, and you see adults hovered around the robot, and the kids that are supposed to be learning and getting involved are off screwing around in Disney World!
Even worse, it seems the corporations pay the kids to be loud and obnoxious and show of the company logo. One group I remember from Chicago marched around the area yelling, screaming, waving Motorola flags and chanting "Team Motorola!" Another group passed out flyers to everyone in the stands that said "Check out the FIRST finals at your local GM dealer." And I think FIRST likes the money its generating, so they're not gonna put a stop to it. I just thought it was sad how the kids were getting used.
When I was at the Univ. of Iowa, I helped the local high school do FIRST for the first time. The students are given a $250 budget (which they're not supposed to exceed). So its a great engineering project - get a task done with a limited budget. And our kids got so much out of it! But they had no chance of actually being competative. How are we supposed to compete against JPL engineers, for cryin out loud? The motto we adopted was, "Early elimination = more time in Disney World."
Sponsorship (Score:1)
I've heard a lot about this, I saw it in the newspaper, in the classroom, and now on Slashdot, but I think one of the flaws of the program is its inability to let people know exactly what the competition is -- I understand they are building these things blind?
Seeka
BEST (Score:2)
The process for competition works like this: one "hub" (local competition area) is given the task of making a game for the year. Then it's released at synchronized kick-off meetings to all teams. From that date, you've got 6 weeks until local competition. If you place in that (either by placing in the competition or the BEST award), you advance to state/nationals (it's still basically state because most of the hubs are in Texas, but some are as far away as Chicago).
For reference, I'm on the Medina Valley High School [k12.tx.us] Robotics team. Click on MV Robotics at the top, and don't believe everything (anything) you read on the schools front page except for the part about the corn :)
Note: Kickoff for next year's competition is scheduled for early October I believe. I also apologize for our website - our school district gave us some real hassle about it so we never had a chance to truly refine it.
CAP THAT KARMA!
Moderators: -1, nested, oldest first!
Re:High cost barrier (Score:1)
Mirrors for the docs? (Score:1)
Re:Cutting Edge Web Site (Score:1)
Re:Cutting Edge Web Site (Score:1)
Good to hear (Score:1)
Good Experience.... (Score:1)
So I don't know about these people who say it wasn't challenging, or it wasn't fun. If you think it wasn't challenging, then get off your high horse and admit it was. When you have professional engineers that work for Lockheed, Nasa, and 500 -person engineering firms have trouble, then you know its challenging. Either that or they stuck to they're programming, and didn't get involved with anything else, and well, who's fault is that?
That last paragraph will probably start a flame war, but hey, I'm just telling it like it is!
Blake
Its a great competition (Score:1)
Panasonic competition egg disaster (Score:2)
The goal was to design a robot that would grab onto a 50 foot piece of string hanging from the Liberty Science Center's upper ceiling, carry a payload of an egg to the top, and be first to get the egg safely to the bottom without cracking it (while still being the first team to do it).
Most teams had set up advanced ways of carrying the egg both up the string and down, so they simply had to roll the egg out when they made it down. This was safe but incredibly slow.
My team's solution was to use tiny egg parachutes, and carry our 3 egg payload (we were supposed to do 3 all together) all at once. What a revolutionary concept!
Except, when we launched the device, it proceeded to go up the string, and launch the eggs out several feet from the landing area, be carried by the air coming out of the air conditioning ducts, and land on several exhibits on multiple floors of the building. The curators of the museum were not pleased.
Needless to say, we didn't win. But we had the biggest laughs when other people were awarded prizes and trophies.
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
Re:Terrible experience if there's no support (Score:1)
Some add'l info (Score:1)
As a reporter for my school [k12.mi.us]'s newspaper, I've done a couple of articles on our FIRST team. Here's a mind dump of everything I can think of:
Re:This years competition (Score:1)
been there done that... (Score:1)
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
Well, I can't agree with you on this subject. I was part of the FIRST Team in two years ago. We traveled to a few competitions but mainly in Philadelphia and Flordia. Me and 2 other computer geek friends were there for documentation. We took pictures with the Maverica camera, we did the website, we secured a website to pass information to other team members (private and public, and yes advocates, we used Linux). While we didn't work directly on the robot itself, we did spend a lot of time on the computer side of it. Everything from tech supporting the Drafting people when they had problems (NT pooping out during 3dmax rendering etc) and even setting up majordomo for a news mailing list. We did the GIMP/Photoshop graphics of all the sponsors we had...
OF course I guess my situation must have been a lot different. I was in a vocational school during high school (Half at the normal high school, rest of the day at the vocatioinal school studying computer maintenance... I competed in VICA for those that know what that is). We did almost all of the work in the school itself. We had welding work on the welds and the robot was mainly built in our Electromechanlical/Robotics classroom lab. The Drafting class did the mpegs for that 'contest'. We even had carpentry build us the cart. It was a good experience I must say. I have tons of pictures from the event, I'll toss them on a website if anyone really cares to see them. Here [neplug.org] is a picture of the "stage" which the robots would compete on at the national competition. As you can see, it was right across from Epcot in Disney... Pretty interesting and exciting. So if anyone actually wants to see some of these cheesey pictures, drop a line to hades@nospam.psu.edu and remove the obvious...
Re:There's Botball too! (Score:2)
If anyone is interested in the source code we used on our robot, it's under GPL -- just let me know and I'll send you a copy.
It's a great contest. Teams can compete on only $2000 sponsorship, and travel is paid for to go to the nationals if you suceed at the regionals.
Though I didn't realize they had switched to mindstorms. When I did it they were using Fred Martin's Handy Board and Interactive C.
Typical. (Score:1)
Re:High cost barrier (Score:1)
If you distribute the tasks in a team it's an even bigger learning enviorment. The Tech kids talk to the business kids and see how it works. Just my thoughts...
Re:Panasonic competition egg disaster (Score:2)
I always wanted to sneak a BattleBots-style robot into one of the robot firefighting competitions. The robot starts up and out pops a saw-blade or whirling chains. It just demolishes the whole maze/house. Maybe the whole thing catches fire and burns down. Sort of in the spirit of the old Obfuscated C Code Contest's "Best Abuse of the Rules" award.
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
In the 1998 competition, we lost the controls award, but felt no grief. Why? The team who won it had done everything we did, and then some. They deserved to win.
In 1999, however, we were really angry that we lost. Why? The awary was totally misjudged. The winner was cited for a creative robot idea (being able to climb over other robots), and not an innovative controls system.
Another dissappointment is that the nature of the 1999 competition did not allow us to "show off" our nifty new features that would have blown people away on the '98 robot, but were developed too late to be of competition use that year. (such as complex closed-loop arm control)
Hey, there's a Canada First too, y'know. (Score:1)
This year there's 27 teams competing, so it's on a decidedly smaller scale. This seems to have benefits, however. We are by no means corporatized. No, really. In fact we need more sponsors. We need another $10K before February or else we have to fly the team down out of our own pockets. And forget about fancy metal work, this baby's gonna be made from wood; anything conducts if you try hard enough.
Anyhoo, this year's 'robotic sport' for Canada First is the robotic biathlon; not quite, but almost, as dumb as it sounds. The events are going to be held in TO on march 1-3, and if we're luckily the Discovery Channel we'll cover us again.
Re:Don't get too excited. (Score:1)
When I first participated in '98, everyone was involved. The team was basically a joint effort between the engineers and the students. This works especially well when you have young engineers (recently out of college). Everyone felt a sense of pride in the project, and felt like they were part of it. It also took lots of time, as I basically spend every evening and saturday for 6 weeks down there in the workshop. I mainly worked on the code, but I also helped with the rest as needed. I even got to be one of the driver/operator people that year, which was pretty cool.
In the '99 competition, however, things changed. It seemed like the engineers (mostly the same ppl) decided to cut the students out of the loop. We were given a sense of participation in the begining, but it degraded over time. We only met a few days a week. The engineers tried to do most of it themselves, and seemed to procrastinate about it. I still worked on the code, so I was involved. However, most of the students (a mostly new group) didn't seem involved at all. I felt a lot of bitterness between myself and the engineers that year. The students were generally less self-motivated, which could have partially led to it, but the lack of veterans kept most of them from noticing it.
Canada FIRST will this year (Score:1)
Re:There's Botball too! (Score:1)
Re:exciting? (Score:1)
Aaron Plattner
Re:Canada FIRST, Great experiance (Score:1)
Re:It's fun... (Score:1)
Aaron Plattner
Small teams can compete (Score:1)
Re:High cost barrier (Score:1)
Aaron Plattner
Corporate robots (Score:1)
Aaron Plattner
Re:Canada FIRST (Score:1)
Re:FIRST degraded by corporate competition (Score:1)
Aaron Plattner
Re:it's great fun (Score:1)
Re:Canada FIRST (Score:1)
Re:Hey, there's a Canada First too, y'know. (Score:1)
Missed last years, but two years ago had a lot of fun at the contest. I think it's more fun when there's more interaction with the other robots, unlike this year's, although I must admit it's actually a pretty cool idea. I remember in the curling tho, placing blocking stones and such.. it was fun.
Good luck to you guys out in Calgary, hopefully see you at the competition....... (give Unionville a cheer when we're up)
Re:Canada FIRST, Great experiance (Score:1)
Again, you said this year it takes 8000 dollars to enter. Where does this money go to? Renting the place? I hardly think that's an issue considering there are so many alternative such as high school assembly halls, gyms or such would cost so little if nothing. As for the staff, how many staff do you need for such a competition? I would bet a lot of engineering professionals in the community would even do it for free, just to encourage the young people and making a good cause. (I know the people where I worked in the summer certainly would) It's this unexplained spent of the fees that made us come to the conclusion that this is in fact a big scam, and not worth of wasting our effort to. I suspect that also how some of the other teams that I spoke to feel.
(Actually me and my buddy were thinking of creating our own competition across Ontario(where I live), with a fixed budget(not 21000 or 8000!!) and some simple standardize components such as the RCX from MindStorm or perhaps some surplus materials. Does anyone think this is feasible or have some idea to contribute?)
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
In the robots we've built, mechanical systems have typically been an afterthought (until this year). One of the robots that's been in the works for about a year has a wretched drive system. Motors are plenty good, wheels are plenty good, control system and power systems are plenty good. But the interface between the motor shafts and the wheels sucks. So I'm in the process of turning wheel hubs out of 6061 Aluminum and fixing it.
In short, it's not good for EEs to view all other disciplines as unholy (well, all other engineering disciplines, anyway. liberal arts and business are unholy). Even in doing EE sorts of things, like etching printed circuit boards, we've had to have knowledge of chemistry, and how to do mechanical things (like cutting photosensitive boards without fscking up the copper or etchant layers). I've recently been acquiring tools, such as a drill press, band saw, grinder, bench sander, MIG welder, a tap and tie set, a nice drill bit set, etc. in addition to my already existing electronics tool sets. For our newest project the mechanics are a whole major section of the project, and are being done first, and done right, with everything laid out before any building starts, just like anyone would do with a circuit board or program, and not as an afterthought.
We don't want a bunch of EEs attempting to build robots after they graduate from high school where the control systems are crippled because the mechanical systems won't/can't do what they're told. Being exposed early to mechanics is good for so-called budding EEs, although I will agree that the competition should maybe add something extra (while keeping the magical US FIRST controller box), perhaps for bonus, so teams who want to explore designing and building their own circuits can go down that path, at the risk of neglecting the rest of their design. I was personally disgusted when talking to that ex-FIRST team member (he graduated) last year, and he couldn't tell me what sort of CPU was being used, or anything.
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
We had all sorts of automation. All our drivers had to do was drive the bot, and tell it kinds of activities. It was lots of fun. I would advise anyone who can join a team to do so.
Re:Cutting Edge Web Site (Score:1)
Run by a 'non-profit' - Re:Canada FIRST (Score:1)
This page [canadafirst.org] states in small print at the bottom that "The national and regional competitions are produced by Motivate Canada (1994) Inc., a national non-profit organization."
It would be interesting to do a freedom-of-information request and get their financial details. How much they pay their president and staff, etc etc. Not all "non-profit organizations" are created equal.(*) Some do a very good job paying their principal employees (often founders of the organization), satisfying the minimum federal requirements for non-profit status, and that's about it.
The fact that this is in such small print and almost barely mentioned, that the 'people' and the 'who' is behind it is not so clear on the website, leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.
I wouldn't want to be involved. I wouldn't want the company I work for involved.
And their website is good, but it's not impeccable. It's got a "splash page" whose entry-hyperlinks are almost un-noticeable. I ended up doing a google search and then finding a link into the pages from there. It was only after I went back out to the splash page and HUNTED that I found the parts of the image that were clickable.
(*) - Now there is a good social studies / law class / school newspaper project. An investigative report on this non-profit organization. An expose. Heck, even verifying that they *are* an officially listed non-profit organization.
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
Re:Hey, there's a Canada First too, y'know. (Score:1)
Re:exciting? (Score:2)
When I first heard of this program and I heard that students could design their own robots, I imagined spider-legged robots with either vacuum based tubes for the years when they use balls, or conveyor belts for the years when they use innertubes, that would do away with the need for tactile sensors and the tricky programming needed to maintain just the right amount of pressure and simplify that aspect of the robot's design. This would allow for more and more creative ways of handling the mobility and terrain sensing issues. Some kind of laser sensor like a barcode reader for direction and proximity alert. Maybe even a form of sonar.
We need to stop crippling the next generation's imaginations. Do away with all these kits and pre-fab solutions. Teach them the principles of mechanical and electronic engineering and don't teach them any design methodologies beyond the basics. We'd probably be amazed at how advanced their solutions would be.
Steven
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:2)
Re:There's Botball too! (Score:2)
The Handy Board is annoying though, it doesn't have a real time clock and the software timer isn't accurate at all - the speed of the software timer is proportional to the current provided by the battery.
Re:exciting? (Score:1)
Aaron Plattner
Wrong, Boyo (Score:1)
FIRST Competition - Do it! (Score:1)
It promotes the design of robust solutions to a unique problem, and in the past few years has stressed cooperation between teams - distancing itself even further from Battlebots etc - which also have their place.
I've seen more kids head towards sci/tech from this program than any other single program in 21 years of sci/tech education. The professional engineers, to a person, say this program is the thing that reminds them why they got into engineering in the first place. A fresh challenge and 6 weeks to go is the antidote for too many engineering jobs - twiddling the last 1% performance per year out of whatever thing you're working on.
Plus, someone asked me what the regional competition was like after we returned. I told them that it was the first time in 17 years of teaching that I had to sit down and put my head between my knees because I was about to pass out watching my students do something academic. And I'm the most laid-back guy on the staff.
Re:Sponsorship (Score:1)
Re:FIRST degraded by corporate competition (Score:1)
Re:There's Botball too! (Score:1)
Re:exciting? (Score:1)
Re:Terrible experience if there's no support (Score:1)
Re:FIRST degraded by corporate competition (Score:1)
Re:Hey, there's a Canada First too, y'know. (Score:1)
Sounds like the teams from Newfoundland did a bang up job last year.. congratz
Re:Hey, there's a Canada First too, y'know. (Score:1)
that would be one cool trip...
Re:Typical. (Score:1)
Though perhaps it was a bad one.
Re:Hey, there's a Canada First too, y'know. (Score:1)
Re:Hey, there's a Canada First too, y'know. (Score:1)
Re:BEST (Score:1)
Re:exciting? (Score:1)
Steven
Re:exciting? (Score:2)
I agree with the point about motors and wires. But I question the inclusion of wheels in the kit. I think encouraging creativity is more important than solving the problem. Sure the most creative robot might not win, but it starts a thought process in tangent to normal thought and THAT might be the next great advance in robotics. A longer time to build and a simulator program to test a great many designs would foster more creativity. The wide variety of robots created for more free-form competitions speak for themselves. I just wish they could get the kind of mindshare that FIRST does.
Steven
Re:EE, CS geeks need not apply (Score:1)
There are 2 different competitions. The High School League and the First Lego League.
The High School league involves making a robot, that is about 3ft x 3ft x 3ft, from stock materials (basically anything you can get at a hardware store.) Everything a team uses on a robot has to be documented and on an approved list of materials. These lists are used to keep the teams on an equal footing. The list for electronics is very small. But there is some real work to get all the electronics you want, with what you are allowed.
You do need to program you robot. Robots are tele-operated and run from 2 joysticks and several discrete switches and buttons. The processing is done by a basic stamp but First provides a control module that gives you DACs, and PWMs out of the Stamp. First gives you a basic program that will run everything but not very well. A good CS person can do a lot to make the robot run better based on changes to the code. Most of the work would be in low level control code not in high level AI type stuff.
The competition that really impressed me was the First Lego League. The competition is for middle school age kids. The teams make robots out of Legos using the Mindstorms RCX box as a controller. These robots are autonomous. The kids program the robots to do different tasks. Once the robot returns to a certain section of the playing field the kids can change the program and reconfigure the robot. This competition really requires some CS skill. Here the teams are limited to the parts that come with the Lego Robotics Inventor Kit. Judging this competition convinced me to go out and buy Mindstorms for myself.
With both competitions the real key is have a coach (and/or mentor) that really leads the team. When I judged the PA state finals you could tell the difference between a team that had a coach that did nothing, a coach that did everything, and coach that guided the kids but left that actual design and choices to the kids. The kids with a coach in the last category, were having the most fun and learning the most.
Beyond coaching, the kids get out what they put in. If a kid decides he wants to program, reads up on what he can do, how he can do it, and then does it, he can fill the whole time doing CS type stuff.
If you are interested in using robotics for education or are in middle or high school and are interested in robotics take a look at http://www.rec.ri.cmu.edu/education/ [cmu.edu]
Re:There's Botball too! (Score:2)
Anyone want one of these robots? (Score:1)