FIRST things first...

I'm very excited to start this deal with something I had been looking forward to for weeks. This weekend, I got to attend the FIRST Robotics Greater Kansas City Regional. When I say "attend" I mean I got to run around juggling two different cameras with a badge on my neck that said "Press Team 1777" (the press badge made my three days actually :D). Even so, this experience was very exciting, fun, and more than worth the time I had put into it (and it was a lot of hours).

For those of you who don't know of FIRST, it's a program where students in high school try to build a robot to compete in a game. The catch is it's pretty out there and wacky, so there's a lot of problem solving and it's really fun to see what people can come up with. This year's game was called Breakaway:



The idea is basically soccor, except there are two massive bumps and towers deviding the feild into three sections.



Robots needed to try to go over the bump or go under the tower. You could score points by getting balls in the goals. Another way to get point was if the bot could suspend itself from the tower.



There was so much more to the game than that, little rules which made it really interesting. These teams themselves were interesting as in they weren't always what yo expected. Yes, the majority of them were aspiring engineers, but you had programmers and public relations specialists (like myself) as well. Everyone had their own story, which was great fun to follow. There was also this great idea from FIRST about "Gracious Professionalisim." I heard this phrase hundreds of times, but even through it's somewhat annoying persistance, the idea was great for these teams to work together and compete at the same time.

The competition was interesting because all of the teams really cared about the game and wanted to do well. At the same time, none of these students were afraid to make fools of themselves. There was always blaring music playing everything from swing jazz to ninties hits and R&B of today. People in the stands would get up and dance and there were mascots running around. You went to different teams pits and try to get as many buttons as you could. In short: it was a total nerd fest and it was too much fun! I actually asked our Senior Project Manager if there had ever been a movie made about one of these teams. He said there had, but it wasn't very good. Maybe I can make a good one someday.

As a final Shout-out to Viking Robotics Team 1777: You guys were awesome. Thank you so much for this great opportunity!