NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Robots designed and built by students at Tehachapi (yellow), Antelope Valley (red and black) and Lancaster (orange and purple) high school robotics teams for the 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition demonstrate their basketball-shooting skill before an appreciative audience of NASA Dryden employees.

NASA Dryden technicians get a lesson in how to dunk a basketball with no hands as the robot built by Antelope Valley High School's Robolopes robotics team launches a foam basketball into a makeshift hoop during a demonstration in the NASA Dryden Experimental Fabrication Shop. Members of the robotics teams at Antelope Valley, Lancaster and Tehachapi high schools showed off their skills – and that of the robots they created for the 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition – at an informal demonstration in the Experimental Fabrication Shop at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center May 23.

An appreciative audience of Dryden technicians, engineers and support personnel witnessed the abilities of the robots, controlled by radio from students gathered at a nearby table, to shoot foam basketballs into a makeshift hoop and goal, representative of one of the tasks they had to master during the spring competition season. All three teams – Antelope Valley High's Robolopes, Lancaster High's Eagle Robotics and Tehachapi High's Cyber Penguins – competed at the national championships in St. Louis the last weekend of April in addition to several earlier regional competitions.

Team members had attended a luncheon sponsored by the International Test and Evaluation Association (ITEA) chapter at Edwards Air Force Base at which they showed off their robots prior to the demonstration for Dryden employees.

NASA Dryden is a major sponsor of area high school robotics teams. The ITEA chapter also contributes sponsorship funds to the three teams represented, as do numerous other civic and business entities in the communities where the schools are located.

NASA photos by Tony Landis

Members of the Tehachapi (black shirts), Antelope Valley (red shirts) and Lancaster (orange and purple shirts) high school robotics teams control their robots that competed in the 2012 FIRST Robotics Competition during a demonstration in the NASA Dryden Experimental Fabrication Shop. Alan Brown, Public Affairs
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center