Panther Prowl Robotics Event Coming to Florida Tech Sept. 29

MELBOURNE, FLA.—Panther Prowl, an off-season FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition, will be held Saturday, Sept. 29, 9.am.-4 p.m. in the Florida Institute of Technology Clemente Center. About 600 high school student on 24 teams from all over Florida are expected to participate in the event, which is designed as training for the annual FIRST event in January. Among the teams are seven from Brevard County. Panther Prowl is free and open to the public.

The intent of Panther Prowl is to offer teams the opportunity to train their pit crews and drive teams before the regular season starts in January.
The robots will play basketball-themed games. At the end of the match, robots will gather at several large teeter-totters in the middle of the “field” within the Clemente Center. Operators will attempt to balance their 120-pound robots on the bridges for additional points.

Brevard County teams come from Palm Bay, Melbourne, Rockledge, Cocoa, Merritt Island and Titusville. For more information, contact Cody Harris at charris2010@my.fit.edu or at (321) 385-7365. Information is also available on the event website at http://floridatech.orgsync.com/org/firstatfit.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is a unique varsity sport of the mind designed to help high school-aged people discover how interesting and rewarding the lives of engineers and researchers can be. The FIRST Robotics Competition challenges teams and their mentors to solve a common problem in a six-week timeframe using a standard kit of parts and a common set of rules. Teams build robots from the parts and enter them in competitions.