| What is FIRST? |
| - FIRST stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology." It is a worldwide organization that designs accessible, innovative programs that build not only science and technology skills and interest, but also self-confidence, leadership, and life skills for young people. |
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| When was FIRST founded? |
| - FIRST was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, an inventor, entrepreneur, and tireless advocate for science and technology. He created FIRST to help young people discover the excitement and rewards as well as inspire interest and participation in science and technology. |
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| What programs does FIRST offer? |
| - There are five main programs that FIRST offer. There is the Robotics Competition for high-school students which make students build a robot that accommodates a certain task. The Vex Challenge is a mid-level robotics competition with more accessible and affordable robotic kits. There are two LEGO League competitions, one for 9-14 year olds and one for 6-9 year olds, which is a pre-robotics competition for the younger ages. Finally there is FIRST Place which is an innovative and creative learning and development program designed to teach everyone all types of science, math, and technology on their own terms. |
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| How many people are involved in FIRST? |
| - Over 133,000 students, 37,000 mentors, and 19,000 event volunteers from all over the world build over 11,000 robots under the FIRST program. |
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| When did the South Jeffco school district become involved in FIRST? |
| - Bill Schmidt from Dakota Ridge High School in Littleton, Colorado formed the FIRST team in 2006. This will be their second FIRST robotics competition. |
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| How many students are involved in the FIRST South Jeffco robotics team? |
| - Around twenty high school students from Dakota Ridge and Mullen High School and around ten mentors including Colorado School of Mines students are involved on the robotics team. |
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| What is the 2007 FIRST Robotics competition? |
| - Each team is to build a robot that will place inner tubes on a three tiered structure in the middle of an arena in a pattern that will earn various amounts of points. Each "battle" will consist of two teams with each team containing an alliance of three robots. The robots have to be able to place rings on the structure and/or be able to lift one of their alliance robots off the ground for more points. |
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| Where does South Jeffco meet for the building period? |
| - Students meet at Dakota Ridge High school from 6-9pm Monday through Friday and from 10-5pm on Saturdays starting January 8th - February 23rd. |
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| How is the South Jeffco team broken up specialty wise? |
| - Each mentor provides help for a certain aspect of the robot. The groups are Programming/Coding, Animation with 3DS-Max, Chassis, Lifting Arm/Gripper, Inventor Drawing, and Administration. |
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| How many girls are involved in the South Jeffco robotics team? |
| - There are two girls involved on the 20+ member team. Each girl exponentially contributes to the team and each is an important aspect to the entire team. |
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| When do the FIRST robots compete? |
| - The robots have the opportunity to participate in scrimmages before regionals, which is held towards late March. Should the team score high enough in regionals, they will move on to Nationals which is held in late April. |
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