The 2014 Northern California Regional Botball Tournament, co-sponsored by NASA’s Ames Research Center, will be held on April 12, 2014, at Independence High School in San Jose, Calif. Sixteen teams have prepared autonomous designs and will compete head-to-head in yet unrevealed challenges.
Botball tournament preparation starts months in advance with robotics research and design activities. Starting in January, students begin receiving and building their kits during two-day workshops in various regions of the U.S. In Northern California, the 2014 development process began in early February. All participants are invited to attend a Global Conference on Education Robotics in the summer. These year-round activities take place in 17 regions throughout the world.
NASA scholarships have paid for the registration fees of more than 900 teams in the past six years. Approximately 48 percent of all teams received some type of scholarship from NASA, including smaller incentive scholarships.
“The Botball tournament is a great avenue for students to work as a team on solving problems through technology,” said Mark Leon who heads the NASA Robotics Alliance Project at Ames. “What the students learn here is how the technology and the solutions they have created can be used in real-world situations. The tournament also expands and deepens their interest in math and science, and it’s great that the students can directly interface with NASA in these areas.”
Participating cities in Northern California include: East Palo Alto, Fremont, Hayward, Los Altos, Middletown, Oakland, Redding, San Francisco, San Jose and San Mateo.
For more information about the NASA Robotics Alliance Project and Botball, visit:
For more information about Ames, visit:
