A group of engineering students from McKeesport High School has qualified to compete in an international robotics championship, to be held next month in Atlanta at the Georgia Dome.

They were given approval by the McKeesport Area school board last week to take part in Atlanta on April 21-23 after winning the First Pittsburgh Regional championship.

First stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. It is a nonprofit organization founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway transporter, to promote science and technology among schoolchildren.

It is funded, in part, by corporations, and competitions are run by volunteers.

The Pittsburgh competition was held at the Petersen Events Center on March 10-12.

Competing as Team 1708 -- Natural Selection, in reference to Darwin's theory of evolution and survival of the fittest, are seniors Jeff Forsythe and Stephan Morgan and juniors Matt Boyko, Chris Joseph, Joe Dugan, Tony Dugan, Jazmine Brown, Matt Faulds, Steve Roper, Joel Parknavy and John Warabak.

All are enrolled in the school district's technology center.

As a rookie team, the McKeesport students got a late start on the development of their robot, called Charles, as in Darwin. They had two weeks to prepare after making a late entry into the competition, while other regional teams had six weeks to build their robots.

The team was awarded a grant by the Heinz Endowments and Mon Valley Education Consortium to buy the required First robot kit. The students quickly built and tested their robot before shipping it to the regional competition.

"I like to think of the First competition as a varsity sport for the mind," said Mike Dischner, McKeesport engineering teacher who oversees Team 1708.

Dischner hopes the First program leads to careers in this field for his students that may gradually lead to an economic revitalization of the Mon-Yough valley.

"I tell our kids that, when you take a look around, with the robotics technology that is growing, we're becoming Robo-burgh," Dischner said. "There are many start-up companies with this innovative technology and there are [established corporations] helping these young companies get started."

The McKeesport team won by playing a game called Triple Play. The game takes place on a 27- by 54-foot gridded field. Schools formed two three-team alliances and used their robots to stack large pyramid-shaped pieces, called tetras, into squares on the grid in a tic-tac-toe sequence.

"You try to play to your robots' strength and, in our case, that was defense," Dischner said. "Our driver was very good at getting our robot in the way of the competitor's robot. It's not like BattleBots, where you can bang other people, but you are allowed to block and push a little."

Team 1708-Natural Selection was eliminated in an early round, but was placed in the regional finals after one of the other finalists had a mechanical problem.

Dischner said donations had been pouring in recently. They will pay for the students' trip to Atlanta, where teams from Germany, Israel, Mexico and Brazil as well as all 50 states are expected.

He is hoping to continue fund raising to pay for future competition.