I’m not into sports. If you’ve known me for any amount of time you know that. When people cheer for their local team, I’m kinda meh. however I do really like robotics competitions. I started by supporting my school’s FIRST LEGO League team, more out of curiosity than anything else. Then my job shifted and I started to really take a look at the world of competitive robotics. I learned more about the various competitions and even coached a few teams at the elementary level. When I first started out I stopped by to observe a robotics camp being put on by our local high school. I now have helped out for the past three years. The kids do a lot of things, but the major activity is to build a robot and compete with it. Each year the competition is a little different. The kids use VEX parts (think erector sets) and simple controls. The robots can get rather complex. At the end of the camp (which was today) they attend the Indiana Robotics Invitational and see what their mentors can do with a big robot. 67 teams from around the world compete in the IRI and if you are interested you can watch it live. Like some competitions you might not get the hang of the scoring, but it is cool seeing what these high schoolers can do and in today’s society what they are prepared to do in the future.
Today’s MINIon honors the “kil-a-bytes” Team 1024 from my school district.