HONOLULU (March 31, 2019) - Honolulu District's Chief, Military Construction branch Tom Crump (right) participated as a volunteer mentor for Team 359 from Waialua at the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Hawaii Regional competition held Friiday and Saturday at UH-Manoa's Stan Sheriff Center. Thirty-­four international high school teams competed for a chance to participate in the world championships April 17-20 in Houston. Along with the three regional winners, four other teams — ‘Iolani, Molokai, Maui and Maryknoll — will head to the world championships. The competition revolves around programming the robot to perform tasks that might emerge as part of a space exploration mission. This was the 12th anniversary of the Hawaii FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) for high school students, with participants from 34 teams that include teams from Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Molokai, Oahu, China, Japan and Taiwan. To compete in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition regional, high school students worked over a six-week period with professional mentors to design and build a robot that solved a specific problem.