The start of the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) 2016 was revealed Saturday with the new game challenge named STRONGHOLD by FIRST Founder Dean Kamem. This years revealed game field is one of the most challenging for the robotics competition of high school students according to the many experienced FIRST participants I have spoken with.

I am mentoring Team #1540 Flaming Chickens of Catlin Gabel in Portland Oregon this season and their use of Autodesk Inventor. After the reveal of the game our team was busy discussing strategy and later testing on a some full scale prototypes of course elements using plywood versions built by some parent volunteers to allow the students to become familiar with the game and help them design the best possible robot to score points in competition.

The team worked all weekend long and will be busy for the next 6 build weeks!

2016 FIRST Robotics Competition Kickoff Broadcast

FIRST STRONGHOLD Game Reveal – YouTube

Autodesk is a Diamond sponsor of FIRST Robotics and many employees are personally involved in many ways including the Lake Oswego Oregon Office being very active in supporting all the local Pacific Northwest high school teams. Autodesk’s high school interns in the Autodesk Lake Oswego office led by Autodesk employee Andrew Sears developed the open-source BXD Synthesis that allows teams to export their Autodesk Inventor assemblies into a competition simulation environment complete with a physics engine. This allows teams to simulate their robot designs before committing to fabrication to determine how they will do on the course.

Looking forward to all the teams competing and their robots from around the world this year!
Shaan