RoboGames Competitors

FIRST was founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1989 to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. Based in Manchester, NH, the 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit public charity designs accessible, innovative programs that motivate young people to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math, while building self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills. Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities. Make a difference in thousands of students’ lives. Create an impact on the workforce of tomorrow. Become a member of our passionate employee base working to make science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education accessible to all students around the world.

VEX Robotics is a leading provider of educational and competitive robotics products to schools, universities and robotics teams around the world. The company’s product lines are backed by years of experience supporting educational robotics programs and are designed to be affordable, accessible and scalable. The company also partners with the non-profit Robotics Education & Competition Foundation to support the world’s largest and fastest-growing competitive robotics program for elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges around the world. The VEX IQ Challenge, the VEX Robotics Competition, and VEX U were designed to give a diverse group of students the chance to celebrate their accomplishments and share their passion for robotics with each other. Learn more about VEX at www.vexrobotics.com For more information about VEX competitions, please visit RobotEvents.com.

In the history of artificial intelligence and robotics, the year 1997 will be remembered as a turning point. The idea of robots playing soccer was first mentioned by Professor Alan Mackworth (University of British Columbia, Canada) in a paper entitled “On Seeing Robots” presented at VI-92, 1992. and later published in a book Computer Vision: System, Theory, and Applications, pages 1-13, World Scientific Press, Singapore, 1993. A series of papers on the Dynamo robot soccer project was published by his group. During the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-95) held at Montreal, Canada, August, 1995, the announcement was made to organize the First Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences in conjunction with IJCAI-97 Nagoya. At the same time, the decision was made to organize Pre-RoboCup-96, in order to identify potential problems associated with organizing RoboCup on a large scale. The decision was made to provide two years of preparation and development time, so that initial group of researchers could start robot and simulation team development, as well as giving lead time for their funding schedules. Pre-RoboCup-96 was held during International Conference on Intelligence Robotics and Systems (IROS-96), Osaka, from November 4 – 8, 1996, with eight teams competing in a simulation league and demonstration of real robot for middle size league. While limited in scale, this competition was the first competition using soccer games for promotion of research and education. The first official RoboCup games and conference was held in 1997 with great success. Over 40 teams participated (real and simulation combined), and over 5,000 spectators attended.