Students from 60 high schools from around the Northeast will converge on WPI this weekend to compete in the 11th annualBattleCry@WPI, one of the nation's largest and most popular off-season FIRST Robotics tournaments for high school teams. The high-energy competition event starts Friday, May 7, and concludes Saturday, May 8. Matches take place in Harrington Auditorium.
Visit the BattleCry website to see the full schedule of events and details on the competitors.
BattleCry@WPI, cosponsored by WPI, SolidWorks, BAE Systems, Philips Color Kinetics, and FIRST, offers FIRST robotics teams – fresh from the thrill of regular-season contests – the chance to put their seasoned robots and battle-hardened skills to use again in post-season competition. In all, 48 teams from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont will participate (some teams include students from more than one high school).
The FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational contest in which teams of professionals and young people build robots using a standard "kit of parts" and a common set of rules, and enter them in a series of competitions designed by Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers.
WPI, the only university in the nation to offer bachelor's, master's, and PhD programs in robotics engineering, sponsors a host of robotics competitions geared toward children ages 9-18. It also developed a robotics innovation competition for college students and this April hosted a conference focused on the ethics of the social use of robots. In March, WPI was one of 43 locations around the world to host a regional FIRST Robotics Competition.
