The 2019 FIRST Robotics Competition was announced on January 5 for the 2019 competition year. DESTINATION: DEEP SPACE takes place on the planet Primus where two alliances compete to gather cargo pods and repair their spaceships during sandstorms. Each round takes two minutes and thirty seconds, with the first fifteen seconds played either autonomously or with the robot operators using video to control their robots.
This is the thirtieth season of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a program that ends on this grade 9-12 Robotics Competition and over four different programs can inspire students all the way down to Kindergarten level with FIRST Lego League Jr. The program was started by inventor Dean Kamen in 1989 to create excitement around the principles taught in STEM fields. Mentors from industry and education work with high school teams to design and construct a robot to best achieve the game goals in six weeks and then compete at regional, state and national competitions.
The Large cargo ships and rockets sit in the field for each alliance, and points can be scored by adding hatch panels or cargo pods to the rockets or ships. Points can also be scored at the end of the match by bringing the robots back to the alliance’s HAB zone. During the fifteen autonomous / video control seconds points are also scored when robots venture out of the HAB zone. There’s a huge repository of game information on the FIRST website, ranging from game rules to field construction to the safety considerations needed when constructing a team’s robot. Dozens of team websites, rules websites, videos about three day robots, and team contributions to the yearly animation competition will also be posted in the coming months. The championships for this season will be held in Houston from April 17-20 and Detroit from April 24-27, 2019.