Robotics Competition to Bring Thousands of High School Students to Campus
Springfield, Ohio – Wittenberg University will host Southwest Ohio’s seventh annual FIRST Robotics Competition in the olSalapura1.jpgd gymnasium of the Health Physical Education & Recreation (HPER) Center beginning at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 8, through Saturday, March 11. The event is free and open to the public.
The FIRST Robotics Competition is an adventurous and creative multinational competition where students come together to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. Students in grades nine through 12 are competing under strict rules, limited resources and the guidance of volunteer mentors including engineers, teachers, business professionals, parents, alumni and more.
The program is an opportunity to change, mold and inspire the students from all over the world. This event will host approximately 2,000 students on 46 teams. It will be the last scheduled event to take place in Wittenberg's 1929 field house before it undergoes major renovations as part of Wittenberg's historic restoration and expansion project, designed to touch the lives of current students, staff and faculty, as well as many in the greater Springfield community.
As part of the Robotics Competition, teams from nine different states as well as one international team from Istanbul, Turkey, are expected to attend the event. Thirty-two teams are from Ohio. Each team has created and developed their contraption, and will now go to battle. According to their website, FIRST® STEAMWORKS the 2017 FIRST Robotics Competition game, invites two adventure clubs from an era in which technology relied on steam power to prepare their airships for the ultimate long distance race. Each team had just six weeks to build and program robots to perform the challenging tasks against a field of competitors.
Colleges, universities, corporations, businesses and individuals provide scholarships to participants. The competition shows students that the technological fields hold many opportunities and that the basic concepts of science, math, engineering, and invention are exciting and interesting.
The event, formerly known as the Queen City Regional took place at the Cintas Center in Cincinnati in past years. Teams will be staying in area hotels for the duration of the event and transportation for students will be provided. For more information, go to http://www.firstinspires.org/ or http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/game-and-season
