Academic Sports

by James Yin

Amidst the wild, almost deafening cheering from countless team members and representatives from their schools, giant size mascots who were incenting the loud screams, participants in the FIRST competition directed their robots toward a common goal of achieving the most points. No two of these school-made robots were designed the same, yet, each and every one of them were competing for the same reward: knowing that academics had enabled them to rise to the occasion of the mental and sports challenges that were laid out in this FIRST competition.

The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) competition entails a variety of seemingly never-ending sports-challenges for robots. Taking place at Columbia University’s gym-nasium in New York City, this year’s competition featured one team of four robots. Their main goal was to cooperatively attain the highest score possible by performing numerous sports-related tasks. All four robots started on the same side of the field. Once the whistle is blown, robots have two minutes to score as many points as possible, aided only by other robots and the passionate cheers from the audience. Passage to the far side of the field must be achieved over a see-saw bridge. Foot-high PVC pipe bars prevent most robots from going around the bridge, however, some innovative teams managed to fit their compact inventions under the bar. Once on the other side, the robots can score points by placing one of several sized balls into a basket. The main obstruction to their progress is the height of the basket opening. At eight feet tall, it is necessary for a robot to have some form of an extendable arm.

The teams are allotted multipliers for voluntarily stopping the match before the time runs out. The more time they have left, the higher the multiplier. The teams also receive multipliers for balancing the baskets on the bridge and for being in a certain area at the end of the contest. These and other rules make the event more extensive than meets the eye at first glance.

Crews tinker and rework their robots in a "pit" area following each round. It was there that TeenSpeak met up with Josh Rigberg, who was working with the team from Brooklyn Tech High School, his former alma mater. Returning to aid the team with their robot, Josh helped with every task from tightening parts to fixing entire mech-anisms. "The key to this kind of competition is you need something simple. If it’s simple, you can fix it a lot quicker," Josh said.

One school's mascot

Josh Rigberg retooling his team's robot