Mouser Electronics will be a major sponsor of this week's FIRST Robotics Competition Dallas Regional event, March 8-11 at the Irving (Tex.) Convention Center. The annual robotics event, which fosters STEM education, attracts over 50 high school teams from across the area. Photo from 2016 FIRST Championships.

ALLAS & FORT WORTH, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mouser Electronics, Inc., the New Product Introduction (NPI) leader empowering innovation, is pleased to announce that it will once again be a major sponsor of the 2017 FIRST® Robotics Competition Dallas Regional, March 8-11 at the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas, Texas.

Mouser is a strong supporter of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an international high school robotics building contest that began in 1992. This years creative STEAMWORKS theme promises to inspire and challenge students and entertain audiences of all ages. As a Captain of Innovation sponsor, Mouser will showcase some of the newest technologies at its exhibit in the pit area at the North Texas event, where over 50 robotics teams from across Texas and Oklahoma — as well as teams from Brazil and Chile — will set up to compete and advance to the FIRST Championship.

"Fostering education has been a large part of our mission here at Mouser since our founding more than 50 years ago," said Kevin Hess, Mousers Senior Vice President of Marketing. "We are proud to continue sponsoring a program that supports the brightest young minds and future engineers. The FIRST Robotics Competition provides students with a platform for innovation, a chance to solve real engineering challenges, and an opportunity to build character and self-esteem."

For the first time, this years FIRST Championship will be held in two locations to accommodate a record number of teams. The championship kicks off April 19-22 in Houston, and then continues April 26-29 in St. Louis, where Mouser will sponsor the Hall of Fame Exhibit, which honors the winning teams of the esteemed Chairmans Award.

Since 2012, Mouser has supported FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) at the local, regional, and international levels, including donating electronic components to FIRST teams. The FRC challenges high school students to build 120-pound robots that complete a different task each year using a standard set of parts, plus any additional off-the-shelf or custom parts. The regional event in Irving will include students, university and corporate mentors, and local leaders in business, government, education and the media. Each FRC team receives a kit of parts, including motors, batteries, a control system, a PC, and a mix of automation components — with no instructions. Teams have six weeks to transform their kits into working robots designed to perform specific tasks. To learn more about how Mouser supports FIRST Robotics, visit http://www.mouser.com/first/.

With its broad product line and unsurpassed customer service, Mouser strives to empower innovation among design engineers and buyers by delivering advanced technologies. Mouser stocks the worlds widest selection of the latest semiconductors and electronic components for the newest design projects. Mouser Electronics website is continually updated and offers advanced search methods to help customers quickly locate inventory. Mouser.com also houses data sheets, supplier-specific reference designs, application notes, technical design information, and engineering tools.

About Mouser Electronics

Mouser Electronics, a subsidiary of TTI, Inc., is part of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway family of companies. Mouser is an award-winning, authorized semiconductor and electronic component distributor focused on rapid New Product Introductions from its manufacturing partners for electronic design engineers and buyers. The global distributors website, Mouser.com, is available in multiple languages and currencies and features more than 4 million products from over 600 manufacturers. Mouser offers 22 support locations around the world to provide best-in-class customer service and ships globally to over 500,000 customers in 170 countries from its 750,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility south of Dallas, Texas. For more information, visit www.mouser.com.