February 16, 2000
UW- and Microsoft-sponsored high school teams set for robot battle
WHO:
Two teams of high school students, one sponsored by the University of Washington’s Department of Electrical Engineering and the Seattle Robotics Society and the other by Microsoft Corp., who are building robots for a national competition.
WHAT:
An exhibition match for the teams to test their mechanical creations before shipping them to the competition site.
WHEN:
Saturday, Feb. 19, from 2 to 4 p.m.
WHERE:
Bellevue International School, 445 128th Street S.E. in Bellevue.
DETAILS:
Area high-school students will put their technical and strategic prowess to the test Saturday when robots they created vie for bragging rights in an exhibition match. The contest will be an opportunity for teams from Redmond High School (sponsored by Microsoft) and Bellarmine Preparatory School in Tacoma (sponsored by the UW and Seattle Robotics Society) to test their creations prior to an annual robotics competition sponsored by For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST). The teams have been working for about six weeks designing and assembling their robots, which will be tasked with outmaneuvering one another in picking up balls, negotiating an obstacle course, then placing the balls in a 6-foot goal.
###
For more information, contact Alex Mamishev, UW assistant professor of electrical engineering, at (206) 221-5729, (206) 543-2150 or mamishev@ee.washington.edu, or UW electrical engineering student and team captain Dinh Bowman at bowdinh@u.washington.edu. For details about the FIRST competition, see http://www.usfirst.org. An electronic flier announcing the match, with directions to Bellevue International School, can be found at http://www.ee.washington.edu/techsite/robotics/Pictures/flyer.jpg.
