News 2015: College of Engineering and Naval Undersea Warfare Center recruiting high school students interested in building robots for national competition

New team forming to compete in First Robotics Competition January 2016

UMass Dartmouth’s College of Engineering and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) are currently recruiting high school students to form a new competitive robotics team that will compete in the First Robotics Competition (FRC) in January 2016.  FRC teams design and build a robot using a set number of resources under a strict time limit that can perform specified tasks.

All high school students are welcome to join the team. Team members will be expected to attend weekly evening meetings at UMass Dartmouth during the fall semester where they will practice building and programming robots. Students interested in joining the team should contact Mechanical Engineering Professor Alex Fowler (afowler@umassd.edu), NUWC Educational Outreach Coordinator Candida Desjardins (candida.desjardins@navy.mil) or Dartmouth High School Physics Teacher Sam Brodsky (samuelbrodsky@dartmouthschools.org) on or before September 30, 2015.

UMass Dartmouth’s campus last March hosted one of the 10 qualifying district events within the New England FIRST Region.  More than 25 teams of high school students from across New England competed in the game challenging their STEM and teamwork skills. Last year's game challenged teams to stack tote bins and recycling bins in a race against the clock to score as many points as possible.

FIRST is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication and leadership.

For more information about FRC please visit ttp://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc.