VCU news

By Anne Buckley, Pattie Cook and Steve Morawetz

More than 400 high school students, as well as engineers, teachers and mentors will gather at Virginia Commonwealth University's Student Commons on Saturday, Jan. 6, for the official kickoff to the 2007 FIRST Robotics Competition. 

Participants will view a live broadcast of the FIRST Kickoff event, to be transmitted by NASA from FIRST headquarters in Manchester, N.H., to 47 remote sites around the world.

The event officially launches the 2007 FIRST Challenge Season, with team members learning about the engineering "problems" they will be challenged to solve, as well as the rules for the FIRST Robotics Competition, an annual event that challenges high school students, working with professional mentors, to design and build a robot as a solution to a technical engineering problem that changes every year. 

Teams also will receive parts "kits" containing robot components. Participants on more than 60 high school teams will build robots and compete in the FIRST Robotics NASA/VCU Regional Competition, to be held March 1-3, 2007, at VCU's Siegel Center.

In addition to the speakers on the broadcast, the Virginia kickoff event, scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. at the VCU Student Commons, 907 Floyd Ave., also will feature several live speakers:

·         Russell D. Jamison, Ph.D., Dean, VCU School of Engineering

·         Scott McKay, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Genworth Financial; Chair, VirginiaFIRST Advisory Board

·         Jeff Seaton, Chief Technology Officer, NASA Langley Research Center; Chair, VirginiaFIRST Planning Committee

·         Aneesh P. Chopra, Secretary of Technology, Commonwealth of Virginia

            Visit www.virginiafirst.org for additional information and go to http://www.virginiafirst.org/FRC/team_list.shtml for a 2007 team listing.