On Saturday, January 9, Beaver’s robotics club officially kicked-off the 2010 FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC). The team spent the day at Northeastern University participating in the annual kick-off event where they watched a live NASA webcast to learn about the competition, attended workshops designed to get them started on the right foot, and received their Kit of Parts.

Under the leadership of science teacher Laura Nickerson and parent volunteers, the team must build a robot that will compete against other schools’ teams in the game “Breakaway.”

In the FRC “Breakaway” robotics game, two alliances of three teams will compete on a 27-by-54-foot field with bumps, attempting to earn points by collecting soccer balls in goals. Additional bonus points will be earned for each robot suspended in air and not touching the field at the end of the match. (From FIRST Press Release)

To get a better sense of what the game involves and the type of robots that could be built, watch the following animation of the game.

As you can tell, our team has a lot of work to do in the six weeks they have to build the robot. We’ll keep checking in with them throughout the building process and the competition.