Tournament Play Opens at First Great Lakes Regional
21 March 1998
Tournament Play Opens at First Great Lakes Regional
YPSILANTI, Mich., March -- Tournament play begins here today at the
FIRST Great Lakes Regional Robotics competition at Eastern Michigan
University's Bowen Field House.
Thirty-one teams from Alabama, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana are
competing for first place.
Yesterday, each team played six qualifying matches to determine their
seeding in the tournament. The Illinois-based team of Rolling
Meadows/Wheeling High School, sponsored by Motorola, earned the No. 1 seed and
a bye to the quarterfinals. The other 30 teams will play in a double-
elimination format until eight teams are left. The quarterfinals, semi-finals
and finals are best two-out-of-three matches. (See the attached list for the
complete seeding positions.)
FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and
Technology, is fast becoming the "Ultimate Mind Sport."
This is the first year the FIRST Great Lakes Regional has been held. It
is sponsored by Chrysler Corp., Eastern Michigan University, Delphi Automotive
Systems, General Motors Corp., Lear Corp., New Venture Gear and JCI/Prince.
According to FIRST Founder Dean Kamen the mission of FIRST is to stimulate
an interest in math and science among young people.
"By putting companies together and putting them in FIRST -- which I like
to think of as the Olympic Committee of Smarts -- we're saying, 'Do for
science and technology what you do for other things, create demand among kids
and the rest will
follow.'"
The FIRST competition has developed into a national contest which immerses
high school students in the exciting world of math and science. Teaming
engineers from corporations and universities, students get a hands-on, inside
look at the world of engineering.
Each year FIRST develops the competition by supplying "a problem" and a
kit of parts to teams of students who, in turn, organize marketing, public
relations, fundraising and management groups to compete for the award-winning
solution. This year, more than 200 student teams had six weeks to design,
develop and build a robot capable of solving "the problem."
The corporate- and university-sponsored teams can compete in a series of
regional competitions. All teams will compete in the national competition to
be held April 2-4, 1998, at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center.
FIRST is a non-profit organization that began in 1989 by Dean Kamen, an
entrepreneur and inventor himself with more than 40 patents. Kamen is also
president of DEKA Research and Development Corporation.
For more information about FIRST, contact 800-871-8326 or visit the web
site at http://www.usfirst.org.
SEED TEAM
1 111 Motorola & RMHS/WHS
2 1 3-D Services & Oakland
3 47 Delphi & Pontiac Central
4 85 ITW Drawform & Zeeland
5 67 GM Proving & MHS/LHS/HHS
6 65 GM Powertrain & Pontiac Northern
7 68 GM Truck /Oakland Tech Center NW
8 45 Delco & Kokomo
9 141 Prince & W. Ottawa
10 27 OSM Tech
11 64 GMDPG/QueenCreek+Highland HS
12 120 NASA Lewis/East Tech
13 94 Lear Corp./Southfield HS
14 35 CMI Dearborn & Montague
15 184 Visteon & Fordson HS
16 34 Chrysler & Bob Jones
17 66 GM Powertrain/Ypsilanti+Willow Run
18 33 Chrysler & Avondale
19 5 Alcoa/Fujikura LTD/Melvindale HS
20 46 Delphi-E/Northwestern HS
21 48 Delphi Packard/Harding/Trumball
22 187 Wisne & UDetroit HS
23 182 UTC/UT & Edsel Ford
24 70 GMI/Kettering/Thomas & Flint HS
25 49 Delphi Steering/Buena Vista HS
26 201 Rochester HS
27 123 New Venture & Hamtramck
28 161 Textron & Cass/Oakland
29 43 Dart & Mason
30 162 TRW & Mason
31 163 TRW VSSI & International Acade
SOURCE FIRST