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• Saturday, September 16, 2006 06:17 PM

  Check out US First and Lego Mindstorm Robotics

  Maybe robotics is not on the radar screen in some places, but US First Robotics; http://www.usfirst.org/ is big with 28,000 High School participants this year and is growing fast. US First is sponsored by NASA, many top-notch engineering universities and fortune 100 companies, and 45,000 mentors and volunteers.

  These kids design, build, program, and control a 120 pound robot to participate in a new game each year that utilizes real engineering principles and challenges. And as in the real engineering world where there are more skill sets needed than just designing and building things. The First challenge also includes web and animation competitions, and has major awards for team professionalism, spirit, and outreach activities.

  I work with a local robotics club for middle and high school kids who participate in the US First Robotics and Lego Mindstorm competitions, and I am constantly amazed by what they accomplish. Pining for a world of basic line programming seems silly when these kids are packing their computing skills, our programming skills, and our dad's mechanical skills into a bag of tools and accomplishing things undreamed of just 10 years ago. They are literally leaping from our shoulders into the future, we needn't worry.

  —eyeballfarmer Read eyeballfarmer's other letters
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