Students Compete To Build Robots In FIRST EventStudents Compete To Build Robots In FIRST Event

Students from around the world will compete in the annual FIRST robotics design competition this weekend. The six-week event is meant to find out who can design and create the best student-built robot in the world.

NASA will broadcast the competition this weekend. FIRST -- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology -- will air live coverage at 10 a.m. as students launch the event in New Hampshire. NASA's Robotics Alliance Project will stream the video and make it available through digital band signals via satellite.

The live broadcast will take place at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. Inventor and FIRST cofounder Dean Kamen will announce rules, parameters, and goals for this year's competition, which includes 1,500 teams and 37,000 high school students.

Teams use the same parts, but each group will come up with a unique approach and use their own imaginations to create robots of specific dimensions, weights, and capabilities. Each year, the parts, dimensions, and goals are different.

Kamen launched FIRST in 1989 to convince young people in the United States that engineering and technology can be fun and exciting. NASA gets involved to promote enthusiasm for science and engineering among young people.

The NASA Headquarters Science Mission Directorate and NASA's Robotics Alliance Project at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., back the competition. The Robotics Alliance Project sponsors six regional student competitions and provides support for 189 teams.

The competition is modeled on an engineering design course that FIRST cofounder Woodie Flowers teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The launch can also be viewed through NASA TV's Public, Education, and Media channels, available on MPEG-2 digital C-band signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization.