The students in the Bear Metal Tahoma High robotics club are busy building a robot for the 2010 FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, competition.

This year the students are building a robot that will score goals with a soccer ball.

Victoria Roger, the secretary of communications for the club wrote the following description of the competition.

“This year there will be two alliances of three robots on each alliance. Each match again is 2 minutes, 15 seconds. Differently from last year however, robots will have to go over bumps unless they can go under tunnels that are only 18-inches tall and 36-inches wide (our robot from last year was nearly 5-feet tall).

The bumps have the potential to flip the robot or make it crash because of its steepness. All the while robots will need to score soccer balls in their two goals ( four goals total, but as in soccer, the robots can only score in the right goals or the other team gets the point). Each goal scored is one point. Robots may play defense to prevent the other teams from scoring. Additionally as the game comes into its last seconds (15 or so) robots have the opportunity to score bonus points by suspending themselves off of a 7-foot tower. This earns the team two bonus points. Then (as if things couldn’t get more complicated) teams can earn three more points for every robot that is hanging off of the already suspended robot, much like in a barrel of monkeys.”

According to the FIRST Web site, “the organization was founded in 1989 to inspire young people’s interest and participation in science and technology. “

The first round of regional events are in March with the FIRST championship scheduled for April 15-17 in the Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Ga.