By Emily Richmond (contact)

Tue, Mar 18, 2008 (2 a.m.)

Because it won last year’s national championship, Cimarron-Memorial High School’s robotics team gets a guaranteed berth in this year’s competition.

But that doesn’t mean the 25-member team isn’t ready to rumble at next week’s regional contest at the Thomas & Mack Center.

Established in 1989 by NASA and a coalition of public agencies and private-sector businesses, the FIRST Robotics Competition draws 20,000 students from 38 countries annually. This year, about 45 teams — including 14 from local high schools — are set to compete.

Each team is provided with the same parts and electronics and given six weeks to build a robot that will complete a specific task. Once teams arrive at the competition they are grouped into “alliances,” each with three schools. The alliances then compete against one another.

As part of this year’s “Overdrive” theme, the robots must race around a track and be able to move giant inflated balls around a 6-foot-6-inch overpass. Cimarron-Memorial’s entry, nicknamed “Pit Boss II,” is a successor to last year’s winning entry. Science teacher Joe Barry, the team's coach, said the name is an homage to Las Vegas’ casino roots and to the nickname for the staging area at competitions where students make last-minute adjustments to their robots.

The robotics team has grown in popularity in recent years, Barry said. Winning the national title sure didn’t hurt.

Students who take part in FIRST Robotics are seven times as likely to choose engineering as their college major than the national average. Stacy Raagas Nelson, now a UNLV engineering graduate student, is one of the Cimarron-Memorial team’s industrious alumni. This year, she will serve as an official robot inspector for the regional competition. She is also a mentor to Legacy High School’s team.

The regional competition will be March 28 and 29, starting at 9 a.m. each day, and admission is free.

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At least once a week someone contacts the Las Vegas Sun to ask when 1,900 retired teachers will find out whether they are losing their state-subsidized health care coverage.

But that’s nothing compared with the flood of calls to the Public Employee Benefits Program. Last week there were about 1,500 inquiries, and many of them were from teachers, said Kateri Cavin, the agency’s operations manager.

The Nevada Supreme Court is considering a related case, and the justices’ decision could mean 3,500 retired public employees, including the teachers, will no longer be eligible for subsidized coverage. Some retirees risk seeing their monthly premiums soar to more than $1,000 from less than $50 on the state plan. For many retirees on fixed incomes, that’s a terrifying prospect.

Cavin said she is careful not to make predictions about the Supreme Court’s course because “if you hypothesize, you give people false hope.” “This is a serious issue, and we recognize that it can make people very afraid,” she added. “We’re sensitive to that.”

At issue is whether Metro Police must pay a subsidy for its 150 retired officers who signed up with the state health insurance plan. The 2003 Legislature required public employers to pay a subsidy to help keep the plan solvent.

Metro has refused to pay the bill, saying the officers were already covered by a health trust the police agency paid into as part of a negotiated contract. The Clark County School District’s teachers are covered by a similarly structured health trust, which is why the Supreme Court ruling on the retired police is expected to affect teachers’ eligibility for the state plan.

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At a recent event sponsored by Desert Honda, nearly 1,000 Clark County high school seniors were honored for their stellar grades and perfect attendance. To qualify, students needed a grade-point average of at least 3.7 and no unexcused or unverified absences for the first semester. If the students keep up their grades and perfect attendance, they will be eligible for a drawing for a new car at the end of the academic year.

Let’s hope one of those classes they never skip is driver’s ed.