Press Release

NASA JPL Student Robotics Competition

By SpaceRef Editor
March 14, 2001
Filed under ,

Tune in this Saturday to see 49 robots and their creators
— 2,000 high school students — take over the Los Angeles
Sports Arena. Complete with referees and cheering crowds, the
student-built robots will duke it out and put on a show during
a regional robotics competition sponsored by NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Watch the students and their robots compete on NASA TV or
on the Web during a live broadcast and webcast of the FIRST
Southern California Regional Competition on Saturday, March 17
from the Los Angeles Sports Arena, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., PST (12
p.m. to 5 p.m., EST).

The webcast can be accessed at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/robotics

The NASA TV schedule is available at
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/breaking.html

Sponsored by NASA and JPL, FIRST (For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and Technology), is a non-profit
organization whose mission is to generate an interest in
science and technology through a robotics competition that
provides hands-on activities, fosters teamwork and gives
students access to engineers who help them build their own
robots.

NASA has awarded 100 sponsorships to high schools
nationwide. Locally, JPL sponsors 24 of the 49 teams
competing in the regionals March 15-17, and is paying for
three schools to go all the way to the nationals in Florida.
JPL has also provided mentor engineers to numerous high
schools and volunteers who help run the event. Admission to
the event is free (except for parking) and open to the public
on Friday and Saturday.

More information on this event is available at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/robotics

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena.

SpaceRef staff editor.