Battling robots invade KeyArena for high school engineering competition

It takes a special kid to get excited about engineering.

Even if their hearts cry out for angles and gears, their peers often call out "nerd" and "geek," and the thrill dies.

About 2,000 exceptions to that rule gathered at KeyArena on Saturday to vie in a robot competition that makes engineering look downright cool.

While rock music blared, thousands of people cheered for 64 high-school teams whose car-shaped robots maneuvered under bridges, rolled over barriers and pushed soccer balls into end goals.

The other half of the floor was a sort of hospital for robots. Kids hunched over machines for pit stops, some reaching underneath to check parts.

"We trained ourselves over the summer, learning to organize better, with an arm subteam, a kicker subteam, a vacuum subteam — we had a subteam for everything," said Kartik Rishi, a senior at Jackson High School in Mill Creek, who donned a jester's hat with flashing bulbs in keeping with his team's Mardi Gras theme.

For all the mohawks and plastic gladiator caps, there was learning going on at Seattle's FIRST Robotics Competition. It is the event's second year in Seattle, after one year in Tacoma.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a New Hampshire nonprofit that organizes techie competitions to encourage kids to major in engineering and other sciences.

The robotics competition entry fee is $6,000 and includes basic parts for a robot. Teams line up their own corporate sponsors and throw fundraisers.

Many teams spend considerably more spiffing up their machines and promoting themselves with T-shirts, Web sites and other gewgaws. Selling their product is part of the competition, just like in the business world.

Boeing project engineer Darin Gee laments that schools do not financially back the program like they do football, baseball and basketball — endeavors few students will do professionally.

He mentors the team from Aviation High School in Des Moines, which calls itself Skunkworks Robotics and has an amazing recruiting arm.

Of the 400 students at Aviation, 42 are on its robotics team. Senior Sam Swan wanted to be a lawyer before he joined the team; now he is leaning toward mechanical engineering.

Recruiting kids to the cause is a big part of what Skunkworks does, Swan said. "We're all about inspiring people."

Skunkworks posts stats throughout the competition showing each teams' standings. That helps each of the eight teams that make it to Saturday's final round determine which two teams they want to join them as partners.

FIRST contests are designed to encourage cooperation. Teams get together in January, when each year's challenge is announced, to strategize. Then at the event, if one robot clobbers another, the aggressor team often helps fix it, because the machines might be partnered in a future round.

Teams with girls are particularly proud, and Aviation junior Jennifer Minar has made a point of recruiting girlfriends to Skunkworks.

"Guys are great at it, too, but it's cool to see diversity in the industry," said the mechanical engineering hopeful.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312