Nordson ASYMTEK for the fifth time is supporting teams who are participating in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competion in San Diego. It is to mentor and sponsor six teams from San Diego.
Nordson ASYMTEK is a world leader in coating, dispensing and jetting technologies. The FIRST completion would offer students an engineering and educational environment for them to study and learn business and technical skills, which would help them in the future. Professional engineers and students come together to form international teams to make a robot that not only performs a task but could also do it better than the other robots from the other participating teams. Thus the fun of learning is combined with real life challenges in the FIRST competition.
According to Stephen des Jardins, who is Nordson ASYMTEK’s senior staff engineer, he could see more and more innovatively designed robots being developed, which seemed to be progressively better than the previous robots. The robots are designed, built and programmed by the robots. Around 60 high school teams would be competing in the round robin matches in San Diego and this would be succeeded by the championship elimination rounds.
The six teams sponsored by Nordson are Escondido Charter High School -- The Daedalus Project; Canyon Crest Academy -- The Aluminum Narwhals; Torrey Pines High School -- Millennium Falcons; Escondido Classic High School -- The Camen Agents; and San Dieguito Academy -- Team Paradox. The challenge that has been selected for this year is called the LOGO MOTION and it would be played by two competing groups on a flat field with dimensions of 27 x 54 feet. Each alliance or group would have three robots. The alliances would hang up several inflated plastic shapes on their grids within the 2 minute and 15 second match and the higher they hang their shapes on their scoring grid, more points would be accumulated by the alliance. If the teams bring together the pieces to form the FIRST logo then the points would be doubled for the complete row. This event is to be held from the 10th to 12th March at Valley View Casino.