Except for the fact that it was 10:30 on a Friday morning, for all intents and purposes, the neighborhood surrounding the St. Joseph High School campus looked as if the scene was set for an oddly-timed District or Regional Championship Basketball game. The parking lot was filled to capacity with every sort of vehicle imaginable, including a few visiting school district school buses. Residential side streets for blocks around where jammed with cars parked everywhere.
The wafting aroma once you hit the door signaled popcorn, pizza and hotdogs were close at hand from the bustling concession stand. Boisterous music was booming from the overhead speakers in the gymnasium, the bleachers were virtually standing room only, even men in black and white striped jerseys dotted the side line.
It was immediately evident that this was no play off basketball game. The floor of the gym was packed with colorful machines with flashing lights, wide open gear boxes, cables, keyboards, and all sorts of mechanical stuff with castle-like parapets strategically located at each end of the floor where the home and away baskets ordinarily hold court.
This was opening day for the FIRST Robotics Competition featuring more than 40 teams of students from high schools all across the region. If ever you had any doubt that this Varsity Sport for the Mind has found its way into the mainstream, this should rapidly quell those doubts.
The festive mood was absolutely infectious. Following opening speeches and ceremonies just ahead of the first robot-to-robot matches, loud stadium rock anthems led to spontaneous line dancing in the open aisles and on the mezzanine floor. Huge pockets of brightly colored t-shirts sported by teammates, parents, fans and supporters clearly delineated who was backing who in the stands, and then the games began.
Within minutes remotely controlled robots were racing up and down the course stretched the full length of the gym floor and when the first successful assault was launched you would have thought that a basketball star had successfully fired from mid-court by the huge eruption of cheers.
FIRST Robotics is gaining fans, friends, corporate mentors and financial support from a broad range of the population not only in the region, but the state and nation. Congressman Fred Upton was on hand for the official start yesterday and State Senator John Proos was slated to speak along with St. Joseph Mayor Pro Tem Fran Chickering and Whirlpool Corporation Vice President Jeff Noel. Whirlpool is a major supporter and sponsor of FIRST Robotics and the District Competition. They also log thousands of volunteer hours coaching and mentoring teams.
Michigan now has more than 410 teams in the competition, adding 70 new teams this year alone for the largest increase in the nation. Our region of the state added 9 new teams this year. By comparison, the second largest state, California, only has 258 teams in the competition.
Even as the first matches of the competition were getting underway, a second field house gym floor adjacent to the main course served as the official "pit" area, where teams were tweaking, fine-tuning, re-working and adjusting pieces and parts for the job ahead.
A second full day of competition is underway today in St. Joseph and following today's matches those teams who successfully advance will head to state-wide competition in Grand Rapids in mid-April. Final round matches today run from 2pm to 5pm with award ceremonies taking place from 5 to 6pm, and the events are free and open to the general public.
FIRST is an international nonprofit K-12 organization that designs programs to encourage young people to pursue their interests in math, science, technology and engineering through education and career opportunities.
