Gov. Mark Warner and Virginia Commonwealth University President Eugene Trani to kick off FIRST Robotics Competition NASA/VCU Regional

By Anne Buckley

About 1,800 high school students from six states will be on hand Friday as Gov. Mark Warner and Virginia Commonwealth University President Eugene Trani kick off an annual robotics competition and announce a scholarship in memory of a VCU engineering student killed in combat in Iraq.

More than 60 teams of students, teachers and professional mentors from high schools throughout Virginia, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina and Washington, D.C., will converge on the Siegel Center on Thursday through Saturday for the FIRST Robotics Competition NASA/VCU Regional. Teams will compete for honors and recognition for design excellence, competitive play and sportsmanship with robots they created in six weeks. Admission is free.

During this year's competition, Warner will welcome the students from around the United States, and Trani will announce the creation of the Karl Linn scholarship, which will be given annually to a student enrolled in VCU's School of Engineering.

Linn, a 20-year-old lance corporal, was killed in Iraq in January when his Marine platoon was ambushed in the Anbar province. Linn was a 2002 graduate of James River High School in Midlothian, Va. After graduation, he joined the United States Marine Corps and was assigned to the 2nd Platoon, Company C, 4th Engineering Battalion out of Lynchburg.

Linn, a longtime participant in the FIRST Robotics program, mentored robotics teams at St. Michael's school in Richmond and founded the James River High School robotics team. He continued as a mentor once he entered the VCU School of Engineering.

During the NASA-VCU Regional, teams will compete head-to-head with 120-pound robots testing their efforts in strategy, design and fabrication. This year's challenge, "Triple Play," resembles a giant tic-tac-toe game performed on a 27-by 54-foot field. The competition starts with 15 seconds of autonomous robot play. It leads into two minutes of remote-controlled play and culminates with two alliances of three robots, which will be required to move and stack tetrahedrons -- three dimensional triangles -- while avoiding the competing team.

Thirty regional competitions are held throughout March and eligible teams will advance to the FIRST Championship, April 21, in Atlanta.

Inventor Dean Kamen founded FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 1989. Based in Manchester, N.H., FIRST designs accessible, innovative programs to build self-confidence, knowledge and life skills while motivating young people to pursue opportunities in science, technology and engineering. With the support of many of the world's most well-known companies, the non-profit organization hosts the FIRST Robotics Competition for high school students and the FIRST LEGO League for children 9-14 years old. To learn more about FIRST and the FIRST Robotics Competition, including this year's teams, go to www.usfirst.org.