FIRST

FIRST was started in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen to inspire and teach young people life lessons in science, technology, engineering, and math. By creating interesting and challenging programs, FIRST embeds the interest of science and technology in young students while simultaneously teaching important life skills. FIRST supports a variety of activities now ranging from ages 6-9 to high school students.

FIRST sponsors competitions nationwide yearly encouraging students to build a robot that participates in a challenge to accomplish tasks. This year's competition is a Rack N' Roll game, where 2 groups of 3 teams each attempt to place inner tubes on a metallic structure in the center of a playing field.

A variety of complex problems must be solved in order to play the game correctly. Each team must decide upon a design that supports the acquisition of the inner tubes, and also the transfer of these inner tubes to the playing structure. A game strategy must be developed in order to ensure that game pieces placed on the structure benefit the team the most. The mobility and agility of the robot must be developed in order to ensure proper movements out on a crowded playing field.

By choosing to attack these problems as a group, FIRST gives the team members valuable experiences in working in group environments. Tasks will be created, assigned, executed, and reported all in a distributed manner. Deadlines will be created to ensure work is accomplished before the shipment date. A lot of hard work is required from the BTW team, but they have proven successful in the past and will surely accomplish great things this year and in the future to come.

This year a bonus will be awarded to teams that have a robot lifted off of the ground by the end of the match. BTW believes that these bonus points will be vital towards winning a round, so the robot design will support the concept of lifting a fellow robot off of the ground in a gesture of friendly teamwork.