Chile to participate in world robotics competition for the first time ever

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SANTIAGO. - Working hard from 9 AM to 10 PM at a workshop in Conchalí in temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius – sound enticing?  This is how a group of more than 30 teenagers from several different Santiago high schools has chosen to spend their summer vacation.  Fanatics of programming and electronics, the teens currently have only one objective in mind: to build the best robot in the world in order to take first place at the First Robotic Competition, the world’s most important robotics tournament organized by NASA.

The tournament begins on March 26th with the regional competition in the U.S. state of Michigan to determine who will go on to the national competition, where more that 300 robotic models from various countries will participate.
 
According to tournament rules, the robot must not be over 60 centimeters tall and should weigh less than 54 kilograms.  For the Chilean “forward” robot, the challenge will be to make it into an oval-space 18 meters long and 6 meters wide.