Robots built by high-school students battled it out at the Pavilion recreation hall last Friday and Saturday during the Sacramento Regional FIRST Robotics Competition. The event was part of the national FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition. This was the third year that the regional had been held, and the first year it was held at UC Davis.

The event "is a great opportunity to welcome bright young folks interested in math, science and engineering to UC Davis," said Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw.

UC Davis sponsored the regional event with $25,000 provided through Hinshaw's office and the engineering dean's office.

About three dozen U.S. and Canadian teams took part in the event. Local teams included Davis, Elk Grove, St. Francis, Jesuit, Granite Bay, and Jim Elliott Christian high schools. Championship awards ended up going to teams from Harker School in San Jose, Menlo-Atherton High School, also in the Bay Area, and Adams High School of Rochester Hills, Mich.

The event was founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter.

"If this group is representative of our future students, our nation will be in good hands," said Enrique Lavernia, dean of the College of Engineering.

Student teams receive a basic kit of parts from competition organizers to begin their project. They have six weeks to design, program and build a robot to compete in the competition. Teams are mentored by volunteers from companies and organizations such as Hewlett-Packard, MCI, NASA and Siemens.

Students who take part in the competition learn a lot of hands-on skills, said Karen McDonald, associate dean of research in the UC Davis College of Engineering and a volunteer member of the event planning committee. "En-gineering design is a very creative activity, and this exposes high school students to that side of engineering," McDonald said.

The organizers devise a new game each year, so teams cannot use the same robot design from year to year. In this year's game, "Triple Play," the robots are designed to place 3-D triangle-shaped game pieces called tetras in or on nine goals. Extra points can be scored by claiming three goals in a row (similar to tic-tac-toe) and by all three alliance robots racing back to their end zone before the end of the two-minute, 15-second match.

"The FIRST Robotics competition is not just about the design and building of sophisticated robots. These students also develop maturity, professionalism, teamwork and mentoring skills that enrich their lives," said Kamen.

"Many of our students develop an affinity for their science and math courses, go on to study engineering, technology, or science in college, and also pursue employment opportunities with sponsoring companies."

A number of UC Davis faculty, staff and students have volunteered their time as event organizers, mentors and judges, including McDonald; Gary Ford, professor of electrical and computer engineering; Roger Boulton, professor of viticulture and enology; Mike Akahori, laboratory mechanic in the College of Engineering; Rick Hill, webmaster for the college; and Deborah Schenberger, a graduate student in biological systems engineering.

"The mentors and volunteers are also an impressive group of folks. These participants enhance their knowledge, have a lot of fun, learn to work effectively in teams, and also do community service -- very much in keeping with the spirit of UC Davis," Hinshaw said.

This season, students participating in FIRST are eligible to apply for more than $4.2 million in scholarships from leading universities, colleges and companies. Scholarship announcements will be made at the FIRST national championship April 21-23 in Atlanta.