Robotics competition heats up in Detroit March 13-15

Beep! Clank! Whirr! 

Let's get ready to rumble!

The Detroit Regional branch of the annual FIRST Robotics Competition will heat up from March 13 to 15 at Wayne State University. Thirty-two teams are registered from high schools all over southeast Michigan -- from Berkley to Hamtramck to Detroit to Pontiac to Dearborn.

California-based Autodesk began sponsoring the competition 17 years ago, not just for fun and games, but to attract teens to careers in engineering. The school teams are linked in with area corporations -- like Ford, Chrysler, GM and DTE Energy -- which puts the students in direct interaction with professional engineers.

Why go through the trouble? A steady decline in math and science score among US students coupled with a growing number of engineers retiring each year could spell a disaster for this country's math and science industries.

And FIRST appears to be working. A Brandeis University study proved that FIRST students were three times more likely than their peers to major in engineering.

This link takes you to the Detroit Regional site, where you can check out the team websites (Recommended: L'anse Creuse and Rochester Adams.). Later this month, 63 teams will compete in Ypsilanti in the Great Lakes Regional.

Regional winners will advance to the FIRST Championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, being held April 17 to 19. Last year, four local schools -- Detroit Country Day, Lake Orion, Saginaw and Berkley -- made the trip down south.

Source: Autodesk
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh