05/20/08 — More Than 42,000 Students in the FIRST Robotics Competition Will Develop Advanced Robotics Applications Using the NI Robotics Platform Powered by NI LabVIEW FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a nonprofit organization inspiring young people to be science and technology leaders, has selected the National Instruments (Nasdaq: NATI) CompactRIO embedded control platform as its next-generation FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) robot controller. With this platform, high school students will create advanced robots starting in the 2009 FIRST season. Students can program their robots based on CompactRIO in either NI LabVIEW graphical programming software or the ANSI C language.…

02/23/08 — SolidWorks Corporation joins effort, pledging financial support for FIRST Robotics mentorship program Inventor, entrepreneur, and tireless advocate for science and technology Dean Kamen challenged thousands of product designers and engineers at SolidWorks World 2008 to mentor young robotics competitors and inspire the engineers of tomorrow. “Adults line up in droves to help young athletes develop their skills in pursuit of jobs in professional sports,” Kamen told more than 4,600 attendees of the SolidWorks World 2008 International User Conference & Exposition, the largest annual worldwide 3D CAD event. “We need technology professionals to show kids they have more options – they…