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Three hot-shot teams from Thunder Mountain and Juneau-Douglas high schools will be among more than 30 teams participating in a statewide robotics tournament for high school students this weekend.

The 2010 For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) Tech Challenge will take place Friday and Saturday at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Students will compete for a chance to represent Alaska at the FIRST World Festival and FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship in April in Atlanta.

"Hot Shot!" is a fitting theme for this year's FIRST Tech Challenge. The challenge: design and build a ball-shooting robot using diverse materials and multiple solutions without a single, dominant strategy and program the robot in autonomous and tele-operated modes with motors, sensors, gears, controllers, software, Bluetooth communications and LEGOs.

The robots compete in a playing area 12 feet square. Teams first try to score the most points in six rounds of qualifying matches. Along the way, each team scouts other teams in search of partners with which to compete for the tournament awards in the final Alliance rounds.

"It's like showing up for a soccer match with half a team," said Juneau Economic Development Council's Rebecca Parks, who has coordinated FIRST events throughout Alaska for the 2009-2010 season. "You watch the other 'half-teams' compete and then pick the one you think will best complete your team for the final matches."

Thunder Mountain High School math teacher Carol May is coaching two FTC teams this year. One of her teams went to Fairbanks last year and placed third overall. The other team is entirely new to FTC. A strength of the veteran team is its care in documenting everything, which earned it a "Best Notebook" award last year. They'd like to repeat in that category, but they also hope their own skills and their luck in picking good partners in the Alliance rounds will earn them a higher overall finish.

May said the boys did most of the programming last year, but this year the girls are programming and even handling some of the mechanical aspects.

"These are girls who have never thought of going into engineering or computer science," she said, "but they're seeing how fun and interesting those fields can be."

At JDHS, science and math teachers Ben Collman and Ricky Bass are racing against time to help their five-student team build and program their robot, hoping to be able to fine-tune its ball-shooting skills before the competition. This is the first year JDHS will send a team to FTC, although one student was on last year's TMHS team.

The JDHS team has been working together about seven hours a week, and that time will increase considerably in the next week.

"They have a good strategy," Collman said. "The trick will be to get the robot constructed and programmed in time for the tournament."

Until yesterday, May wasn't sure her teams' robots would be ready for Fairbanks either.

"I told them there's no point in going if the robots can't shoot," she said, "but one team's robot finally began scoring in yesterday's practice and they'll have another four-hour go at it tonight."

A poor-performing robot is unlikely to do well in the qualifying rounds and could drag an Alliance team down as well. The team likened yesterday's success to getting a yellow card on American Idol: "We're going to Fairbanks!" they shouted.

Coaches are grateful to the local Women of the Moose for helping to raise money for the teams by organizing and hosting a spaghetti feed and dessert auction. Looking to the future, May would like to be able to raise enough money to offer a robotics class every other year at TMHS's fall academy.

For a full list of teams and other information about FIRST Tech Challenge, visit jedc.org/2stem-lego.php or contact Rebecca Parks at rparks@jedc.org or 523-2334.

For more information about the Juneau Economic Development Council or its SpringBoard and STEM programs, contact Larry West at 523-2328, lwest@jedc.org.

• Larry West is Juneau Economic Development Council's communications specialist for the SpringBoard/STEM programs.