FIRST and FRC
The FIRST Robotics Competition is a robotics competition that, like the name sugests, was created by FIRST, a company created by Dean Kamen, the person who also happened to create the Segway, the personal transport device with two wheels. He is a man who began trying to spread science and technology throughout the United States. After that, he created FIRST and FRC as a way to spread technology to people from high school. The first competition of this kind was done back in 1992, under the name of Maize Craze. Today it has had a total of 20 competitions with varied topics, and it is currently hosting its 21st competition, under the name of Ultimate Ascend, which we will talk on another post.
FRC events can be divided quite equally into four different stages:
- Kick-Off: This is when the game is announced. It usually happens at the beginning of January. It is a large event that happens in Manchester, New Hampshire but it is broadcasted in a large variety of places, like here in Mexico.
- Build Season: This is a six-week period of extreme robot building. This is the most important part of the event. Here the planning, construction, programming and, hopefully, testing take part.
- Regional Events: Unless you go to Michigan, the first place you go to is to a regional. Here, the teams get together to compete for the first time. There is an elimination phase and a finals phase. In both phases the games are made up of two teams of three robots. In the finals phase though, the teams are fixed and created by the top eight robot teams so, even if you don't pass, you can still continue.
- Championship: Here, all of the winners of the regionals and the winners of certain select awards, which will be mentioned in a while. This event is generally in the same place for a few years in a row. For the last few years it has been held in Saint Louis, Missouri. Here there are also competitors of the other FIRST programs like FLL (FIRST Lego League), Jr. FLL and FTC (FIRST Tech Challenge).
Then, of course, there are the awards given in the regionals and the final. These are just a few of them:
- Chairman's Award: This is the most important award for FRC. It stands for the values of FIRST. It asks for community service, spreading science and technology, working in a fair manner, being an integral team, helping other teams amongst other requirements. They also ask the teams participating to submit a video saying why they think they deserve the award.
- Creativity Award Sponsored by Xerox: Given to the team with the most creativity in design, strategy and features of the robot.
- Engineering Inspiration Award: Given to the team with impressive advances in engineering. Also for spreading this in the team's school and community.
- Entrepreneurship Award: Given to the team with a well made business plan and with objectives and enthusiastically completed these goals.
- Innovation in Control Award Sponsored by Rockwell Automation: This award is given to the team with the most innovative control features. Unique functions that make this robot different than all the others.
- Rookie All Star Award: Given to the rookie (first year) team that has the most integrated team and that best assimilated the FIRST values. Mainly made to give a chance for rookie teams to get a taste of what FIRST represents.
For now, this is all we have to say about FRC, but wait for more about the tournament and the team!