14 teams from Israel in the FIRST robotics competition taking place these days in Detroit

The global competitions in the USA will begin on Thursday, April 25 and will end with the award ceremonies on Saturday, April 27. Link to view on the competition website

These days the world championship in robotics is being held in the USA on behalf of the organization FIRST. Tens of thousands of students, instructors, volunteers and graduates from more than 70 countries in the world came to Detroit to compete with each other on the performance of the robots they built. This year's theme: "Deep Space". Additional awards are given for the dissemination of technical knowledge to the community (the "engineering inspiration" award), an award for a group that is a model, the generous professionalism award, the entrepreneurship award, the industrial safety award, and more.
FIRST is an international non-profit organization founded in 1989 in the USA by the inventor of the Segway Dean Kamen, an entrepreneur and a tireless follower of science and technology. The organization was founded with the aim of inspiring young men and women, developing motivation and curiosity in them and encouraging them to values, engineering, science and technology. FIRST is an abbreviation of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology and in Hebrew: "For inspiration and recognition in science and technology".
This activity relies on the involvement of hundreds of thousands of volunteers who are partners in the global FIRST community.

The Israeli teams won from among approximately 12,000 students aged 18-6 who participated in the FIRST robotics competitions held throughout the year throughout the country. The competitions are held by the FIRST organization and the Technion, and the president of the Technion, Prof. Peretz Lavi, serves as the chairman of the global FIRST program. At the beginning of April, the Israeli final competition took place in Tel Aviv under the sign "The destination: deep space". As part of the competition, the students were asked to build robots that know how to load balls into a spaceship, arrange disks and climb stairs, all this in six intensive weeks of planning, sketching, building and programming.

FIRST is an international non-profit organization founded in 1989 in the USA by the inventor of the Segway Dean Kamen (Dean Kamen) - an entrepreneur and tireless follower of science and technology, who holds more than 440 patents in the USA and other countries. The organization was founded with the aim of inspiring young people, developing motivation and curiosity in them and encouraging them to values, engineering, science and technology. FIRST is an abbreviation of For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology and in Hebrew: "For inspiration and recognition in science and technology".

The organization FIRST Israel was founded 15 years ago by the former commander of the Air Force Major General Avihu Ben-Nun, in cooperation with the Technion. Ben-Non, who serves as the chairman of FIRST Israel, said that in 2005 he met with Dean Cayman and received an offer to open FIRST in Israel. He talked to his friend Benny Kader and they immediately decided to go for it. "We still didn't realize how much work it required," says Kader, "but I'm glad we didn't." And we knew that the natural partner was the Technion." "The program is growing rapidly," he adds, "and our goal is 20 thousand students in 2020."

Prof. Alon Wolf from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion, who leads the competition in Israel on behalf of the Technion, said that "Our concept is that everyone must help others - the competition is structured so that the person who competed with you at the moment will be your partner in the next round, and vice versa. The competition is based on 1,500 volunteers and only 8 paid employees. In six weeks, all the groups come to create a robot that can handle very complex tasks. It's a process that involves about 12,000 students in more than 200 municipalities from the entire social and geographic spectrum."
The global competitions in the USA will begin on Thursday, April 25 and will end with the award ceremonies on Saturday, April 27.

The high schools from around the country that won in 2019 in the FRC competition held in Israel and flew to the competition in Detroit are:
From Tel Aviv Alterman High School, from Magev - Asif School, from Ra'anana - Aviv High School, from Binyamina - Ort Binyamina, from Modi'in Maccabim Reot - on Maccabim Reot Mor Elementary
From Dimona - Rabbi Zinman, Mosham - Shoham High School, Mahod Hasharon - Hadrim High School, Mirocham - Science Center, from Kfar Yona - Ish Shalom Six Year School,
From Eben Yehuda the Walworth Barbour American International School, from Ramat Hasharon the Green Village High School, from Haifa - the Raleigh School, from Mifia - Marach Algozlan High School, from Beit Yanai - Hadassah Youth.

According to the participating students, the excitement of participating in a competition is huge, and the special atmosphere that is created around it is an amazing experience.
You can follow all the games on the competition website: