The First Step On The Road To FIRST Robotics

Last Friday was the first meeting between Vigilant and the students of LCCHS (LaSalle Community Comprehensive High School), who will be participating in the FIRST competition of this year, 2012-2013.

”FIRST is an inter-scholastic competition whose objective is to Favour Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology among Quebec youth, by engaging them in an innovative robotics mentoring program focused on the construction of a functional, high-quality robot,  that calls on the expertise of engineers and university students, while promoting a balanced lifestyle that includes self-esteem, communication and leadership.”       –   http://www.robotiquefirstquebec.org/

Last year, our Vigi-mentors tutored the kids on matters of programming and engineering, as well as marketing their creation as a fearsome competitor. This year, we will be doing the same, as much with the new recruits as with some veterans of the competition.

The evening of our reunion, we dusted off last years robot to show the newbies the inner workings of the little beast, affectionately named Sonic Howl in honour of LCCHS’ wolf mascot. Camera, basketball launcher, mechanical arm; all these gems were reviewed during the demo, designed to pique the interest of our recruits.

Now it is the new team’s turn to select a name for this year’s creation and then patiently wait for FIRST to announce the theme of the competition before launching themselves into the cybernetic construction process.

Meanwhile, keep an eye on our blog; we will be rolling out FIRST updates until the end of the competition in March/April.