Football may be king in Bellevue, but another form of competition has young brain jocks bringing home the accolades.

Robotics contests have gained popularity nationwide thanks to the non-profit group FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), which hosts yearly engineering challenges throughout the country.

Students have treated the activities like a varsity sport, and area high schools are faring well.

Bellevue High won first place at the 2008 FIRST Pacific Northwest Regional FIRST Competition. Newport High took second place and Sammammish High earned the highest seed for a rookie at the same contest.

“It’s hard to describe the feeling you have when you come out of a regional event,” said Grace Ostrom, a Boeing engineer and parent volunteer for the Newport team. “It’s exhilarating.”

FIRST hosted its inaugural competition in 1989 with the goal of getting youths interested in technology. The first challenge featured only 28 teams, but more than 1,500 groups now are involved.

Bellevue’s International School joined the ranks in 2001, when Ryan McElroy founded the Titan Robotics Club as part of his senior project. The team traveled to California for a regional competition the following year and earned the Rookie All-Star award.

Robotics groups have sprung up throughout the Bellevue School District ever since, with each high school now laying claim to a team.

The Titan club has won second place at two regional events since its founding, and now fields around 45 members. The group included 15 percent of the school’s student body in 2005.

Newport senior Suparno Chakrabarti has seen his team grow from 15 people in 2004 to around 45 today.

“It’s basically just a matter of winning,” he said. “The people who are into this really enjoy what they’re doing, so they talk it up. That attracts more people.”

FIRST robotics competitions include a series of games played by remote-controlled robots.

Students receive building materials, guidelines and objectives for the events in January. Then they have six weeks to prepare.

“It’s an incredibly intense time,” said Adlai Felser, president of the Newport team. “Not only do you have to build your robot, but you have to design it.”

The more advanced teams spend their off-season staying engaged with technology. Some develop software for future competitions, while others mentor middle school groups that participate in similar engineering programs.

FIRST also hosts nationwide Tech Challenges that feature smaller robots, and offers Lego League engineering contests for students between the ages of 6 and 14

The FIRST Lego League serves as a stepping stone for students interested in the mainstream robotics competitions.

All teams that participate in FIRST’s robotics competitions are duty-bound to perpetuate the sport.

Bellevue High’s crew mentors a FIRST Lego League team at Chinook Middle School, the Titan group runs a robotics summer camp for middle school students, and Newport’s team helped launch the Sammammish High program that performed so well at the Pacific Northwest Regional in 2008.

Clubs that lend a hand with younger students tend to reap rewards later on.

“The new people already have a lot of the basic programming skills and mechanics down before they reach us,” said Titan mentor Amy McIvor. “Some of the kids from other schools have no concept of that.”

Another requirement for robotics clubs is inclusiveness.

“It’s meant for anyone at any level,” said Bellevue High robotics team advisor Greg Kilpatrick.