Date posted: 04/17/2009*

Seven Raytheon-sponsored teams, totaling nearly 150 high school students, will compete in the 2009 FIRST Robotics Championship event, taking place April 16-18, in Atlanta, Ga.

The FIRST Robotics Championship is an international event in which teams of high school students build a robot over a period of six weeks using the core principles of engineering and mathematics. The final teams – 8,600 students from 11 countries – have been selected from more than 42,000 contestants who already competed at regional level competitions around the world.

“Raytheon is committed to inspiring students to do better in math in school and go on to pursue math- and engineering-related careers – something which fewer students have an interest in, but something the U.S. cannot do without to stay innovative and globally competitive,” said Kristin Hilf, vice president of public affairs for Raytheon Company. “We are happy to support FIRST Robotics for helping young people discover how interesting and rewarding the life of an engineer or mathematician can be.”

Raytheon’s support of FIRST is a component of its MathMovesU program, an initiative designed to engage middle school students in math and science and help create the next generation of innovators for the U.S. Since the program was launched in 2005, MathMovesU has awarded more than $2 million in scholarships and has touched the lives of more than 700,000 students, teachers and parents nationwide.

Read the full press release.