While many of their friends were coasting during last week's school break, some South Central High School students were in overdrive.

In the days following their exams, 20 students gathered almost eight hours a day in Mamta Singh's science classroom to review principles of algebra, geometry, physics and computer science. The test will come in March, when students compete in the FIRST Robotics Competition at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Photos by Rhett Butler/The Daily Reflector (ENLARGE)

South Central High School students Will Bridges, left, Craig Schmidt, David Beacham and Derek Fateiger, right, work on the robot after school on Monday. The team has six weeks to build the robot and prepare it for competition.

(ENLARGE)

South Central High School students Will Bridges, left, Craig Schmidt, David Beacham and Derek Fateiger, right, work on the robot after school on Monday. The team has six weeks to build the robot and prepare it for competition.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is an annual competition that challenges students to turn a box of parts into a functioning robot in six weeks. In this year's game, called "FIRST Overdrive," teams will score points by creating a robot that can race around a track and handle a ball.

Three weeks ago, South Central received motors, batteries and a kit for constructing a robot but no instructions for how to design, build or program it. Since then, team members have been working after school and on weekends and holidays to complete the project.

In a typical school week, that equals at least 20 hours of work on the robot. During last week's break, the work time nearly doubled.

"They've signed their lives away for me," said Singh, who is advising the Falconators team, the first Pitt County team to participate in the competition, along with teacher Ann McClung. "They're eating, drinking and sleeping robots."

A dozen teams from North Carolina are among the 1,500 groups participating in this year's event, a scholarship competition that has drawn more than 35,000 students from across the United States and seven other countries. Half the state's teams, including South Central, are rookies to the competition, which began in 1992 to expose students to opportunities in science, technology and engineering.

Participation in FIRST is voluntary, and students receive no course credit.

"This is not a class. This is not a club," Singh said. "It's like a varsity sport."

In more ways than one.

At this year's competition, students' robots will race around a track, knocking down 40-inch inflated balls and moving them around the track, passing them either over or under a 6-and-a-half-foot overpass. Robots that can position the ball back on the overpass before the end of the two-and-a-half-minute match score extra points.

"They're learning a lot because we don't teach something like this in school," Singh said. "They're learning things they would learn in college; some of it they wouldn't even learn in college.

"I thought it would be a good opportunity for students to be able to experience something like engineers experience."

McClung's husband, Bill, acting superintendent for the purified acids department at PCS Phosphates, is engineering mentor for the project, which includes Singh's husband, Moses, and a handful of other volunteer engineers.

"The kids are supposed to lead the show, but it's pretty technical," Bill McClung said. "When they get stuck, that's when the engineering managers come in."

South Central students are also getting some advice from Pitt Community College's Construction and Industrial Technology Division, which is tutoring students in a computer software program that will help them design the robot. It's a first for PCC manufacturing engineering technology instructor Derek Hunter, who has never worked with a team in a robotics competition.

"We're going to try to supplement," he said. "I get excited anytime I see high school kids that have interests in the technical areas."

FIRST involves more than science and technology. South Central art students helped design a logo for the project, and other students are responsible for marketing and creating a Web site.

Team member Will Bridges said students bring different skills to the table.

"It's sort of funny that I'm building a robot because I don't know how to use Microsoft Word," Bridges, a junior, said. "I had a ... problem using K'nex sets as a kid. ... I'm definitely more of a guitarist than an engineer."

South Central senior David Beacham, who is working to program the robot, hopes to pursue a career in computer science or computer engineering. But freshmen Payal Patel and Kathleen Daniels are not sure their design work will train them for their future careers.

"Students who graduate from FIRST don't all become engineers," Bill McClung said. "That's OK because there are so many pieces of the puzzle."

"There's a lot of planning; there's a lot of organization," he said. "What they really wanted it to be was a small business."

South Central senior Seth Anderson, project manager for the Falconators, said the team has relied on area businesses, such as Lowe's home improvement warehouse, to donate material to enhance the robot.

"They sent you a carton that includes the motor and basic components of the robot, and you have to get sponsors to help pay for other parts you might want," Anderson said.

Still, with FIRST limits of no single purchase more than $400 and no more than $3,500 in gifts or purchases for the entire project, students have to rely on creativity, rather than cash, to complete the job.

So far, the most expensive part of the competition has been entry fees. Teams pay $6,000 for the initial kit and the right to attend the first regional competition. A subsequent contest has a $4,000 fee.

South Central's entry fee was paid by Texas businessman James Harris, a Belvoir native. Harris, brother of Grifton School Principal Walter Harris, donated $10,000 in honor of their mother, the late Virginia Cates Harris, who encouraged her sons to pursue an education.

"She pressed for an education. An education was really important to her," said James Harris, who received undergraduate and graduate degrees from East Carolina University, where he also taught. After moving to Texas, he bought Gardiner Communications, a business that designed and manufactured satellite-related components.

Harris said he learned to build things as a boy because the family had little money to buy them. He didn't have a bicycle to ride, so he built one out of spare parts.

A longtime supporter of FIRST teams in Texas, Harris wanted to give the same opportunity to students in his home county.

"Our kids in this country are very deficient in science and mathematics, so they need every chance they can get," Harris said, adding American students should devote more of the time they spend on hobbies such as video games to the study of math and science.

"I want to inspire children," he said, "because if you don't pay the price early, you'll pay the price all your life."