VARSITY BOT-BALL

In the first regional robotics competition staged in Hawaii, local high school teams perform exceptionally, while having a ton of un-geeky fun. Robots invaded UH’s Stan Sheriff Center for three days recently. It was basically a peaceful invasion as the robots, under the control of their human overlords, came in the spirit of peaceful competition.

The goal is to lift a big ball over obstacles

FIRST was founded by inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen. While not a household name, Kamen is perhaps best known as the man who brought the world the much-hyped, much-mocked, scooter-like Segway, which for a short time provided comic fodder for assorted late-night talk show hosts. On a more serious note, he invented a revolutionary portable dialysis machine and has made great strides in mobility devices for the disabled. A bit of an eccentric (as befitting a man whose father was a famous comic book artist), Kamen lives akin to a James Bond villain who never went bad. Westwind, his 32,000-plus-square-foot home in New Hampshire, is shaped like a huge hexagon and features many different levels as well as secret passages, an observation tower, and a 25-ton steam engine once owned by Henry Ford. And, of course, there are helicopters.

Kamen started FIRST in 1989 in hopes of changing the way young people looked at math and science. As he told Wired, “Our culture celebrates one thing: sports heroes.” So he started a competition to bring some of the coolness of sports to pursuits such as engineering and invention. He reiterated his thoughts on the matter during his closing remarks on the final day of the Hawaii Regional Competition March 29.

The Radford High Rams took second place

After a set by taiko drummers from the Pacific Buddhist Academy, Kamen spoke with a hint of frustration about America’s “narrow focus of achievement” which looks only at athletes and movie stars. Noting how our politicians seem to pay inordinate attention to sports, he observed, “The president even throws out the first ball at the start of baseball season.”

If it were up to him, Dean Kamen would surely want the president to roll out one of the big inflatable balls at the start of FIRST, too.

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