Sunday, April 26, 2015

I, Robot

First Robotics 2015-04-25 1

Yesterday afternoon I walked over to our big domed football stadium to check the final rounds of the FIRST Robotics competition. There are regional competitions world-wide but the championship tournament is always here.

This is for high school students who design radio-controlled gizmos performing specific but difficult tasks. Thousands of team members have been swarming downtown. I saw three young women checking a restaurant menu, wearing the Canadian flag as capes. Driving home Friday, one of them entering the Arch grounds was wrapped in the Spanish standard. As I approached the stadium yesterday, there was a group wearing Cat In The Hat style hats in the colors of the German flag. An Israeli team that made it to the quarter-finals waved the sky blue and white in the stands.

The competition is hard to follow for the uninitiated. This year it had something to do with stacking and moving plastic storage cases and recycling bins. Points were awarded for, well, I don't know what. Pieces of green foam spaghetti flew through the air.  There may (or may not) have been points awarded for sticking them in the recycling bins.

(And, BTW, apologies to Isaac Asimov.)                             

First Robotics 2015-04-25 2

First Robotics 2015-04-25 3

7 comments:

s.c said...

Must be a nice event to follow.

Luis Gomez said...

I would love going to one.

PerthDailyPhoto said...

Lots going on here, but a little hard to follow what's happening Bob :)

William Kendall said...

Now that is cool!

Jack said...

My company sponsored some schools in this competition, but, frankly, I never understood what they were doing.

Halcyon said...

I like the creativity anyway!

Stefan Jansson said...

Sounds like a fun event. I remember all the I Robot books, read them many moons ago.