A southwestern states alliance took the title in the first ever Las Vegas Regional of the FIRST Robotics tournament today, with two dramatic match wins capping the two-day event. The "Triple Play" game matched two three-team "alliances" on the field of play at UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center. The winning alliance featured Cimarron Memorial High School (nicknamed the "High Rollers") of Las Vegas, Nevada; Queen Creek and Highland High Schools (the "Gila Monsters") of the Phoenix, Arizona area; and Granite Hills High School ("Bionic Battalion") of El Cajon, California.

Approximately 2,000 students from 38 teams as far away as Alaska and Hawaii participated in the Las Vegas regional, which began on Friday, April 1, with preliminary matches. Student-designed and built robots participated in two days of brutal and exhilarating on-field competition, cheered on by many families, supporters and spectators.

The three teams forming the winning "alliance" from the Las Vegas Regional will advance to the FIRST Championship Event at Atlanta's Georgia Dome, April 21-23.

As a whole, the FIRST Robotics tournament involves more than 20,000 students from 27 countries in an intense experience designed to sharpen problem-solving skills, promote science education and bring scholarships and international acclaim to bright young minds.

In the competition, student teams are challenged to build working robots optimized to perform complex tasks in an exciting, head-to-head game format. The competitions are high-tech spectator sporting events, the result of focused brainstorming, real-world teamwork, dedicated mentoring, project timelines, and deadlines.

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational non-profit organization, that aspires to transform culture, making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today. Corporate and educational sponsorship and volunteer participation fuel the FIRST Robotics Competition.

Colleges, universities, corporations, businesses, and individuals provide scholarships to FIRST participants. Involved engineers experience again many of the reasons they chose engineering as a profession, and the companies they work for contribute to the community while they prepare and create their future workforce. The competition shows students that the technological fields hold many opportunities and that the basic concepts of science, math, engineering, and invention are exciting and interesting.

Sponsors for the FIRST Las Vegas regional included the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Bechtel Nevada, Bechtel SAIC, Jan's Iron Works, Southwest Gas Corporation, Technology Ventures Corporation and UNLV's Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering, which has also provided graduate student mentors for Clark County's six participating teams.