Indiana FIRST would be receiving help from Interactive Intelligence in running the robotics competition, affiliated to FIRST.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational non-profit organisation, which works towards making science, engineering and math concepts easy and approachable to school children. The robotics competition is to be held on the 29th of June from 3 to 5.30 p.m. at the northwest-side of Indianapolis headquarters of Interactive Intelligence
High school students participating in the competition would make their life-sized robots compete with each other. All the robots have been designed, built and tested by the students with the help of the financial aid from local companies associated with Indiana FIRST.
The matches in the competition are played on a field, which is of the size of an half-court basketball court. The competition is a test of teamwork, robotic design strategy and offensive and defensive game play techniques. Interactive Intelligence is helping FIRST by providing a place to host the competition as part of the Interactive Intelligence Foundation initiative. The Foundation is Interactive Intelligence’s charitable wing, which concentrates on utilising resources and funds to help make life improvements for the youth who are at risk. Joe Staples, the chief marketing officer of Interactive Intelligence, stated that they chose to help out FIRST because the mission of their charitable Foundation and that of FIRST’s were on the same lines.
Brant Bowne, President of Indiana First, explained that the robotics competition was organised in a grant manner in order to show to the student community that math, science and engineering concepts can be interesting and exciting. He added that this year’s event saw participation from Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, U.K, Mexico and Israel, apart from American schools.