Long and fn day.. Today was Vermont’s first FIRST Tech Challenge competitions. FIRST is a worldwide robotics championship begun by inventor Dean Kaman more than 10 years ago. FIRST is an annual event where kids get together to build a robot that competes in a complex set of challenges . The events are run like a sports match.. there are teams compete against each other and collaborate with each other to advance through the tournament. The kids learn so much about design, fabriction, testing, communications.. everything that makes a really good engineer.   .. More than 10 percent of the entering class of MIT this year had participatesd in FIRST at soem point in their high school career. ..

There are three levels of FIRST>. beginning with FIRST Lego league for kids in middle school, then FIRST Tech Challenge .. like the one we did.today.. for high school kids.. and the more advanced FIRST Robotics Completion… also for high schools .. .  There have been teams of each type here in Vermont.. but we’ve never been big enough to have our own tournament.. Not until today at least…. We filled UVM’s Davis Center from about 6:30 AM until just after 6L30 PM …   We ad something like 23 teams some from within Vermont.. and many from as far away as Michigan. New Jersey, and Massachusetts..

The competition began at 10.. but there were several hours of prep and inspection leading up to that start.

My friend Kristin W was one of the lead organizers and was the main MC>. I was the co-MC along with Jessica,

a masters student in Engineering at UVM.

We kicked off the event with a special video address from Governor Shumlin..

then we bagan the match.. all the timing and match running are automated..

Jeff F even brought his RF scanner to make sure the robots radios weren’t getting too much interference.

here’s one of the pair of teams.. from an early match.. these teams might pair p in one match.. then play against one another in these next..

our judges and refs were getting pretty tires mid day.. it was so much work !

Finally it was time to give out some awards.. these guys  from New jersey won a Design award. .. they even brought their school mascott …

finally we had some winners..

here I am with one of our great local teams.. te team from Essex Hih School

their robot has had a sam stone on it for the last 4 yeas.. it made me o happy to see..

ad here are our first place winners from NH/Mass.. really nice folks !

it was a great day.. full of cool robots, tough challenges.. and .. as they say in FIRST.. gracious professionalism..

It was so much fun.. my huge thanks to the competitiors, their coaches, team that helped put this together.. and to UVM for allowing us to host them event there. I’m sure this will the first of many FIRST events in Vermont.

gotta sleep now..

nite all, nite sam

-me