by Dot Cannon
“3, 2, 1, CHARGE!”
On Friday, thousands of high school students waited to hear those words.
Day 1 of the 2016 Los Angeles Regional FIRST® Robotics Competition was happening at Long Beach Arena.
And on the word, “charge”…
…students and robots alike sprang into action.
Sixty-five student teams were onsite, to compete in the medieval-themed quest, “First Stronghold”. Teams, including two from Chile, one from Hawaii and one from Nevada, joined together, two teams on each side, to form the “Red Alliance” and “Blue Alliance”. Their goal: to capture the opposing team’s castle, while defending their own.
Master of ceremonies “Sir” Jojo Aguilar put the audience to work, voting on which medieval obstacles the robots would have to contend with. 
Sally ports, moats and portcullis were all a part of the day’s matches! So were foam “boulders” which robots tossed at the towers.
The morning’s opening ceremonies had included a brief talk by SpaceX’s Tom Mueller, who shared his three main keys to success.
“Do what you’re interested in,” he advised. “That’s what’s great about this. It lets you find out early on what it is you like to do, what you’re good at. Make good choices….Don’t get discouraged. Things don’t always go right (as you’ll experience in building your robot).”
Inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen founded FIRST® Robotics competitions in 1992. How it works: professional engineers, from companies such as JPL, Disney Imagineering and Xerox Corporation, mentor teams of high-school students. Under their mentor’s direction, each student group creates and operates a robot.
And the project is labor-intensive, according to Joshua Hughes, of Spartatroniks. “I spent thirty hours a week working on (our) robot,” he said.
In addition to the time investment, entering FIRST® Robotics Competitions costs a team $5,000. Parts, to build their robot, could cost an additional $5,000–and teams reach these goals through sponsorships.
“Each team member is required to go to three businesses,” Joshua explained. In addition, teams apply for grants, which make up a major portion of their funding. In total, there are three levels of FIRST® Robotics competitions in which teams can choose to compete–including the World Championship, in St. Louis.
“We got in the top 20 in 2015,” Joshua said.
After sixty-four matches at the end of Day 1 of First Stronghold, the Blue Alliance had scored a victory. The audience cheered.
Then they cheered even louder, at this parade.
These are all the mentors–and the numbers represent the years they’ve been mentoring the teams!
And congratulations to Team 4201, the Vitruvian Bots!
They won the “Imagery Award” for combining attractiveness in engineering with outstanding visual aesthetics, both for the appearance of their machine and their team.
What a great Day 1! More awards and much more fierce “fighting” lie ahead when the pits open at 8:00 Saturday, for Day 2 of the 2016 Los Angeles Regional FIRST® Robotics Competition.