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Robots invade Verizon

By JOHN WHITSON
New Hampshire Union Leader Staff
15 hours, 12 minutes ago

MANCHESTER ? More than 1,200 budding engineers and scientists, trailed by mentors, coaches and parents, will descend upon downtown today as practice begins for a FIRST Robotics regional competition at Verizon Wireless Arena this weekend.
FIRST logo 75px

The Granite State Regional is one of a record 37 such competitions taking place throughout the United States, Canada, Israel and Brazil in a run-up to the 2007 FIRST national championship April 12-14 in Atlanta, Ga.

That gathering will boast 1,300 teams and more than 32,500 student competitors.

The 16th annual event was founded locally by Dean Kamen, president of DEKA Research & Development Corp., which maintains its national office in the Millyard.

FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology - gives high school students six weeks to build a robot for competition. Each team gets the same raw materials, and this year's competition is dubbed "Rack 'n' Roll."

Teams work with mentors and coaches, but the students are largely left to their own devices to transform their kits into a working robot that can perform assigned tasks.

This year's competition has been described as 3-dimensional tick-tack-toe. In one phase of the game, robots must operate independent of human guidance and place a tube on a metal rack of arms situated in the center of the arena floor. In another phase, a driver operates the robot to perform similar tasks.

There is a formal scoring method that includes bonus points and penalties.

With FIRST being native to New Hampshire and headquartered in Manchester, the organization "absolutely" makes it a priority to schedule a local regional, said Marian Murphy, FIRST communications manager.

After hosting a regional from 1992 to 1998, Manchester dropped off FIRST's radar until returning in 2003 and settling in at Verizon Wireless Arena. "Since then, there has been one there every year," said Murphy.

Many of the regional's 46 teams are based in New Hampshire, but participants will come into the city from throughout New England, and there will even be two teams from Canada.

"They use quite a few hotel rooms, and I know when they take their breaks the pizza places and hot dog stands, those types of places, are packed," said Marsha Snively, executive director of the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

BAE Systems is sponsoring this year's Granite State Regional.

Karen Spiller, senior media relations representative for BAE, said this will mark the company's 15th year of involvement with FIRST.

"It's important to BAE because it's a source of our future work force," said Spiller. "It brings very highly talented people together. It's good for the community and, therefore, it's good for us."

Teams will arrive throughout the day today, setting up work stations and testing their robots.

Doors open to the public tomorrow and Saturday at 8:30 a.m. Matches take place tomorrow from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday from 9:20 a.m. to 3 p.m. An awards ceremony will begin after each day's matches. Events each day are free.