High schools compete robot to robot in annual contest

Valley High School named rookie all-star in first appearance

jenna dosch/viewThe team from Canyon Springs High School watches its robot, No. 2061, compete in the FIRST Robotics competition at UNLV?s Thomas & Mack Center, March 28. Students from 14 valley schools participated. Advertisement

With lively music blaring from the Thomas & Mack's public announcement system, school mascots running around and kids dying school colors into their hair, you might have thought you were at a March Madness game. But you weren't.

The annual FIRST Robotics competition took place late last month at UNLV and 14 teams from local high schools participated. The racing-formatted competition was hosted by the university's Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering.

"I liked the game this year," said Marc Rogers, co-adviser of Cimarron-Memorial High School's team. "I thought the Las Vegas regional was extremely well-run."

During the event, player-controlled robots created by high school students circled a track while trying to knock down inflated balls. Teams had to attempt to pass the round objects over or under an overpass during the two-minute rounds.

"It's almost like NASCAR," Rogers said.

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology is a high school robotics program developed to show students that science can be as exciting as sports and entertainment and to inspire them to pursue careers in science and engineering. During the competition, students, with the help of UNLV and engineering industry mentors, design and build robots from an identical kit of parts. In addition to building, the students get involved with marketing and fundraising activities.

Behind a black curtain that divided the Thomas & Mack Center in two, teams worked on their robots in the "pits" and made necessary tweaks before their next round.

"This is especially cool because you're actually doing (science) labs in between matches," said Clark High School physics and math teacher Jeff Sanders.

Cimarron-Memorial, 2301 N. Tenaya Way, won both the regional championship and the Chairman's Award, the highest individual honor given to a team at the event. The school will now defend its world championship Thursday through Saturday at the FIRST championship in Atlanta. At the high school, students are offered robotics classes that cover electronics, gears, pneumatics and programming.

"The robotics classes allow us to get new members (of the team) up to speed," Rogers said.

Students at Cimarron-Memorial also get mentored by local professional engineers Mark Jones and Greg Hjelstrom to give them some real-world experience before hitting the competition.

"We clearly had the best programming in Las Vegas, and (Hjelstrom) was part of that," Rogers said.

Alex Sambvani, a senior at Cimarron-Memorial, helped mentor his younger teammates for the recent competition.

"It was a great learning experience for me," Sambvani said.

Sambvani, who was just accepted to Stanford University, said his experience with FIRST will help in his post-high school life. He plans to become a mechanical engineer.

First-time competitor Valley High School, 2839 S. Burnham Ave., was named the rookie all-star and was presented with the Highest Rookie Seed Award.

"I think it was a great experience for the kids," said Valley's robotics adviser Hector Caraballo Bautista. "They put so much passion into building the robot. They did a really great engineering job."

Valley came in ninth overall in the competition and was mentored by Cimarron-Memorial. Teams from Southeast Career and Technical Academy, Palo Verde, Legacy and Clark high schools also advanced through the qualifying rounds before being eliminated.

"It was a very unique way to get a lot of motivation and enthusiasm generated," Sanders said.

The robots are designed and built in six weeks by teams of 15 to 25 high school students and a handful of engineer-mentors. The students remotely control the robots in competition rounds on the field.

"It opens a lot of doors and provides a lot of opportunity for these young kids," Rogers said.

The event fee for FIRST's Las Vegas event is $6,000, and Sanders said "a lot" of grant money is available for rookie teams.

"NASA offers a $6,000 grant for rookies," Sanders said.