And so it finally begins! High schools across Arizona are arousing from a long slumber waiting for the new season of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The Kickoff meeting took place at Brophy College Preparatory in their newly constructed Harper Great Hall on January 5, 2008. There were a grand total of 41 teams, including 38 AZ teams, 2 New Mexico teams and 1 from Utah.

HSGM

Before the new game challenge was actually released people such as FIRST founder Dean Kamen, NASA Program Executive for Solar System Exploration Dave Lavery, and FIRST National Advisor Woodie Flowers gave speeches about the competition, its simplicity and complexity, to make the most of our experiences that may help us in our future careers, and, most importantly, gracious professionalism! Of course the teams became restless and anxious waiting for the revelation of the game, but you better believe it was worth the wait! A silence fell over the audience as the countdown began for the drawing of the curtains, and as they were pulled down a gasp of wonder spread throughout them as they began to gaze on the field of this year’s game:

The game is played with a three-on-three team alliance (red and blue). The track is basically a track, such as one from NASCAR, which the robots are only allowed to travel counter-clockwise on. Simple, right? But there’s always a catch. In order to score more points, the teams must design a robot capable of moving the 40 inch diameter balls, known as trackballs, on the overpass 6.5 ft above the field. The objective of the game is to move the trackballs around the track as quickly as possible earning points when the robots cross the finish lines, more if they have they are carrying a ball.

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