Competition theme “Aim High” challenges students
to collaborate and build champion robot in just six weeks
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. – 27 April 2005 – Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), a founding
sponsor, will continue its commitment at the FIRST Robotics Championship, an
annual event that teams high school students with professional engineering and
business mentors, held April 27-29 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Students
design and build a robot for a high-tech and high-intensity competition,
complete with an immense crowd of spirited super-fans, team uniforms and logos.
Each year, Motorola engineers volunteer their time to be mentors and work with
area students during a six week period, partnering to design and build robots
that compete against other high schools while providing advice, support and
encouragement. This year’s challenge, “Aim High” matches alliance teams of 3
robots against each other. Each team scores points by shooting undersized
basketballs into various goals during a 2 minute and 10 second match.
“Through Motorola’s ongoing support for FIRST, we have been able to inspire
over 1,000 young people, proving math, science and engineering can be fun and
rewarding,” said Eileen Sweeney, director of the Motorola Foundation. “Several
students who participated in the program are now engineers at Motorola.”
Last month, Motorola was a sponsor of the Midwest Regional Competition, where
two Motorola-sponsored teams from Schaumburg, Illinois and Plantation, Florida
took home awards and invitations to the championship.
This year, the FIRST competition will expand its reach to over 28,000 students
representing approximately 1100 teams. The Motorola sponsored teams will compete
with students from almost every state in the U.S., as well as from Brazil,
Canada, U.K., Mexico, Ecuador, Ghana, and Israel.
Source: Motorola press release
