The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, nationwide competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way.

For many years, the NASA Robotics Alliance Project has been supporting participation in the FIRST Robotics Competition by providing grants to high school teams as well as sponsoring FIRST regional competitions.

Providing support to competitions like FIRST Robotics is one way the NASA Robotics Alliance Project strives to create a human, technical and programmatic resource of robotics capabilities to aid future robotic space exploration missions.

Competition Kicks Off Saturday
NASA Television will broadcast the annual FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition kickoff event on Saturday, Jan. 8, from 9 a.m. to noon. The broadcast will be aired at Cuyahoga Community College, Unified Technologies Center (UTC), 2415 Woodland Avenue, Cleveland.

FIRST is a program designed to help students discover how interesting and rewarding a career in engineering and science can be by giving them real world experience working with engineers to build a functioning robot in six weeks.

During the live broadcast, which originates from Manchester, N.H., Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Human Transporter and founder of FIRST, will reveal this year's robotics competition for thousands of high school students across America. More than 100 students are expected to attend this year's event at UTC.

The Saturday kickoff marks the beginning of the design and build season. Students will have the opportunity to meet with peers from other schools to compare notes, get ideas, make friends, find mentoring teams, pick up the kits needed to build a functioning robot, and gear up for the Buckeye Regional Robotics Competition, scheduled for April 7-9, 2011.

The schools attending the kickoff are:

Amherst Steele High School Amherst

Austintown Fitch High School Austintown

Beachwood High School Beachwood

Bedford High School Bedford

Berea High School Berea

Brush High School Lyndhurst

Chaney High School Youngstown

Cleveland Metropolitan School District Cleveland

East Technical High School Cleveland

EHOVE Career Center Milan

Erie School District Erie, Pa.

Girard High School Girard

Hathaway Brown High School Shaker Heights

Highland High School Medina

Lorain High School Lorain

Mc2STEM High School Cleveland

Midpark High School Middleburg Heights

Orange Schools Pepper Pike

St. Edward High School Lakewood

St. Ignatius High School Cleveland