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"  NEW YORK -- It wasn&amp;#039;t hard to find the high-octane action of the FIRST Competition at the Jacob Javits Center this past weekend. All you had to do was follow the thunderous cheers erupting from several hundred amped-up high-school students. Inside the exhibit hall, face-painted teenagers waving foam fingers and team flags were packed hip-to-hip on two sets of bleachers as referees circled center court.  It was much harder to believe what elicited such fervor: Hand-built robots going head to head as a varsity sport. Sixty-two teams from mostly tri-state schools (and two from Great Britain) convened to celebrate geeky prowess with all the enthusiasm of the Final Four--right down to the cheerleaders. Their goal: Advance to the national competition in Atlanta&amp;#039;s Georgia Dome later this month--and have fun while they were at it. Founded by maverick inventor Dean Kamen in 1989, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) has ballooned to include over 1500 teams and 37,000 high schoolers in several countries and every state in the U.S. Each team is given a standard kit of 400 parts and six weeks to meet a single engineering challenge. Yet at the end of the flurry, like snowflakes, no two robots are alike. This year, teams scored points by moving 40-in. balls around an elliptical track and either herding them under or hurtling them over a 6-ft., 6-in. overpass. No robot could be taller than 6 ft. or weigh more than 120 pounds--but that&amp;#039;s where the similarities ended. Some robots sported PVC jaws that clamped around the ball; others scooped it with forklift-like arms or ejected it from an aluminum cage. At least one whirled around backwards and catapulted the ball over its shoulder.  By 3:30 pm on Sunday, the competition had narrowed to six teams that played against each other as two alliances. The Red Alliance, on one side of the track, was made up of three schools from New Jersey, including the Robo Warriors--the first-seeded team from Warren. The Blue Alliance included the camo-clad Robotic Plague from Staten Island, a team from Massachusetts and another from New Jersey. When the bell rang, the teams&amp;#039; drivers stepped up to their remote controls and the robots leapt into action, lurching around the track. A demolition-derby-style pileup quickly occurred in one corner, but the robots excavated themselves and resumed course. The Robo Warriors&amp;#039; bot grabbed a red ball in its arms and extended like a telescoping ladder to about 8 ft., pitching it over the overpass.  The crowd gasped as the Viking Robotics&amp;#039; machine teetered at a precarious angle, close to tipping onto its back in an effort to lift another ball at the overpass. It miraculously righted itself and a cheer went up: Eight more points for the Red Alliance. A Blue Alliance robot chased a ball toward the wall but couldn&amp;#039;t quite clamp it firmly in its jaws. The bell rang again: End of the bot bout. When the Red Alliance was named regional champ after winning two out of three heats, the Robo Warriors raced onto the field and hugged their victorious ladder-bot. It was a triumphant moment for the team, but everyone in the exhibit hall seemed to share in their jubilance. After all, as one rookie roboticist explained to PM earlier, even though the students compete fiercely, they also exchange ideas and advice, learning from each other along the way. The teams&amp;#039; mentors--FIRST alumni and professional volunteers--took a victory lap to appreciative student applause before Kamen assumed center court. The room was rapt, the quietest it had been all weekend. &amp;quot;We gave you six weeks and a pile of junk to build a robot, and I think most of you had fun trying,&amp;quot; he said. A cheer started in one row and quickly grew, rippling through the crowd. &amp;quot;Now imagine if we took away all the constraints. Imagine if you had six months.&amp;quot; The room roared. Now, imagine what 37,000 students could do with engineering, if they had a lifetime to do it.  RELATED STORIES * COMPLETE COVERAGE: Live @ FIRST Robotics 2008 (With Video!)  * EARLIER: FIRST Competition Starts With On-the-Fly Robot DIY  * Q&amp;amp;amp;A: Dean Kamen on the Future of FIRST, Science Ed &amp;amp;amp; Geek Culture  * VIDEO: Fast Times at Robot High With Bot Building    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/robots/a2756/4257753/>