The Ann Arbor Huron High School "Rat Pack" FIRST Robotics team announced Wednesday that it had finished in first place at the FIRST regional competition in St. Louis, Mo.

Huron beat out 42 other high school robotics teams from throughout North America to win the event, held last Saturday, March 1.

The FIRST Robotics competition was co-founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway transportation device, and Woodie Flowers in 1992. The international competitive program was developed specifically to inspire young people to become involved in computers and engineering. The field wasn't seen as interesting and fun by high school aged people, an outlook that Dean and Woodie were determined to change. They made it interesting by only telling the students rules of a game, and setting them free to design, build, and program their own robot. This continues today on a much larger scale. 

Each year's game is announced via simulcast to dozens of schools around the nation on a day called Kickoff, so as to not give one area an advantage. After the simulcast the next six weeks, from mid-January to the end of February, are "build season.|" Generally the first week or two is devoted to coming up with a design for the different components of the robot. The next five or six weeks are a frantic period of building, testing, and rebuilding parts for most teams. Every so often nothing will go wrong and the team will have plenty of time to program and test out their robot, but for the most part it gets shipped to the first competition unfinished. All teams share a common shipping day nationwide, so teams competing in later regional events don't get an unfair advantage.

The first competition is mostly a time of repairs and completion, with only a few teams going out to the first few practice matches. As the day progresses, more and more teams feel that they are complete enough to take to the field, leading to more exciting matches and higher scores.

The game this year is reminiscent of NASCAR, but with the added fun of throwing balls over six-and-a-half foot hurdles. It is played by two teams of three robots each. The game is divided into two sections, with different scoring rules for each. The first 15 seconds are called “Hybrid Mode,” with the robot being mostly autonomous except for receiving a few commands by infrared remote control. Teams get four points for crossing any of the four boundary markers, and eight points for knocking the balls off the hurdle over the finish line. The next two minute period is the teleoperated period, with teams assuming full control over their robot. Scoring is different for this time, with teams receiving two points per lap, and two more points if the ball crosses the line. If the ball is thrown over the hurdle, eight points are awarded. If, at the end of the two minutes, one or both of a team's balls is replaced on the hurdle, that alliance gets 12 bonus points. 

Penalties can be directed at your team if any rules are broken, subtracting 10 points from your final score. The current record is over 140 points in a single match.

Carl Vitullo, a member of the Huron High School team said the team had a particularly tense time. During the choosing of teams, where the top eight ranked teams choose two other teams to be on their alliance to try for the trophy, Huron was the final choice, made by the No. 1 ranked team -- which Vitullo said was unexpected, even though it was the highest ranked team left unchosen. 

Huron's robot was designed as a forklift, but that part of the robot was broken, Vitullo said -- so the Huron robot was simply running laps for two points a lap.

In the second match of the "best of two" semifinals, the score was tied 112-112 -- until the other team was penalized, giving Huron the match. In the first match of the finals, the opponent's battery connection of its primary scorer came loose, leaving them dead in the water and Huron a winner by 112-20. And in the final game, Huron fell behind by 20 points before coming from behind to win 82-74. 

It was the first regional win ever for team 830.