We love robots here at ST, and nothing makes us happier than seeing happy hacking high-schoolers pitting their robots against eachother in friendly competition, which is exactly what was going on today at CeBIT. The competition was really more an exhibition, but it was tremendously fun to watch. Each team represents a local high school, and each is given six weeks to build a remotely controlled robot that will compete to complete a specific task, in this case a sort of robot/human basket ball. The basic object is for either human or robot to put purple balls into baskets, or do other tasks like complete a “pull-up” on a bar in the center of the field. It’s amazing what these kids came up with, and it’s certainly an inspiration to anyone considering getting involved in robotics. To learn more about the program, go to New York City FIRST. Pictured is the Brooklyn Tech (go BK!) entrant, which didn’t actually compete at CeBIT. More pics under “read more.”
Hardware Beyond the Hype