Bots take the stage at Cal U.
Student engineers from the City High Robotics team in Pittsburgh carry the robot from the battle floor during an early round of the First Robotics Competition.
Fans of classic 8-bit arcade games were in their element at this year’s Greater Pittsburgh Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, held Thursday through Saturday in the Convocation Center at California University of Pennsylvania.
More than 50 teams from nine states, as well as teams from China and Taiwan, drove their 120-pound, custom-built robots across the playing field. In this year’s challenge, “Alliances,” video game characters and their human operators were trapped in an arcade game and completed a series of tasks in order to escape.
Teams tune up their robots behind the scenes at the event. This year’s competition encouraged teamwork by requiring teams to form alliances in order to complete the arcade-style challenge.
Cal U. was host to the FIRST Robotics Greater Pittsburgh Regional competition for the fifth consecutive year. Upcoming robotics challenges include BotsIQ, Southwestern Pennsylvania Regional Competition, April 12 through 14, where teams from 85 regional schools and community organizations battle for dominance in gladiator-style matches; and the National Robotics League, May 18 and 19, when about 70 high school teams from across the country, including some Southwestern Pennsylvania BotsIQ competitors, send their robots into battle.
Electric Mayhem, a team from Nichols School in Buffalo, N.Y., fixes their robot between matches.