April 2009
Students from around the world will be competing at the 2009 FIRST Championship, aided by more than $17 million in design software and resources provided by Autodesk.
The FIRST Robotics Competition challenges high-school students to collaborate and build a robot in six weeks to perform a specific task, using a standard kit and common set of rules. Given today's complex economic and environmental issues, it is now more important than ever to foster innovative, real-world science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills.
This is the 18th consecutive year that Autodesk has supported the competition, which will be held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, April 16-18. Since 1992, Autodesk has contributed approximately $123 million in resources to FIRST programs to inspire students to pursue architecture, engineering and digital arts careers. FIRST participants are likely to help fill a serious employment gap that's expected to widen, as fewer students pursue engineering degrees and technical employees in the aging workforce begin to retire.
"Today's students are motivated to make a difference in the world, and we know they learn better when they're engaged in meaningful tasks," said Joe Astroth, Ph.D., Autodesk VP of Learning and Education.
"This unique program inspires excitement for science and math by showing that engineers can solve significant problems, making it a very rewarding career. As FIRST participants design and build a robot, they gain insights and skills they need to prepare for the engineering opportunities of the future. Finally, by working together to address a challenge, students learn important life skills, including collaboration, creative problem solving and teamwork."
In conjunction with FIRST, Autodesk is also hosting two popular design competitions: Autodesk Inventor Design Competition and Autodesk Design Visualization Competition.
The Inventor Design Competition recognizes the team that builds the robot with the best mechanical design using Autodesk Inventor Professional software–a foundation for Digital Prototyping. The software, which is used by professional engineers, helps students to work together to visualize and analyze real-world performance before physically constructing their robot.
The Design Visualization Competition awards the team that creates the best 3D animation using 3ds Max and Combustion software for modeling, animation and rendering. The animation must fit this year's theme using biomimicry to solve a design challenge.
Winners of these competitions will receive the Autodesk Inventor Award and the Autodesk Visualization Award.
More than 42,000 students on 1,686 teams from the United States and 10 other countries are participating in this year's FIRSTcompetition. FIRST programs are operated by more than 85,000 volunteers worldwide, many of them professional engineers and scientists who mentor the next generation of innovators.
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