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Delphi Sends Sponsorship Support

24 March 1999

Delphi Sends Sponsorship Support, Five Teams To FIRST's 1999 Great Lakes Regional Competition

    TROY, Mich., March 23 -- Delphi Automotive Systems
enters its eighth year of participation in FIRST by providing its
strongest support ever -- including the sponsorship of five high school teams,
a major engineering award and the 1999 Great Lakes Regional Competition,
March 25-27 at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Mich.
    Delphi's five teams, located in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, include:
Kokomo (Ind.) High School; Pontiac (Mich.) Central High School; Carman-
Ainsworth High School in Flint, Mich.; Warren G. Harding High School in
Warren, Ohio; and Buena Vista High School in Saginaw, Mich.
    The Great Lakes Regional Competition is one of eight regional events
leading up to the 1999 FIRST National Championship in Orlando, Fla.,
April 22-24.
    The Great Lakes Regional is significant because it is the only regional
competition held in Michigan and one of two held in the Midwest.  Delphi's
sponsorship of the event allows area FIRST teams to get valuable, high-level
competition against other teams.  About 60 teams are expected to compete at
the Great Lakes Regional.
    "The world needs textbooks, but there's no better way to introduce
students to the discipline and the art of engineering than the FIRST
competition," said J.T. Battenberg III, Delphi chairman, chief executive
officer and president.  "Delphi is extremely proud to support this program,
which helps prepare tomorrow's leaders of science and engineering."
    Delphi, with General Motors Corp., donated $500,000 to help the not-for-
profit organization expand its reach.  Battenberg also joined FIRST's board of
directors last year to help guide the group's growth.
    FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and
Technology, is an international program designed to get high school students
as enthused about science, math and technology as an athletic competition.
    FIRST was founded by inventor and technology wizard Dean Kamen in 1989, in
an effort to generate an interest in science and technology among American
youth.  A number of major American corporations and universities play an
important role in this national engineering competition, teaming up with
student squads to give students insider "know-how" on brainstorming ideas,
designing devices and putting them to the test.
    FIRST brings engineers and students together for a specific mission:  to
design, build and test a robot built from a kit that includes a
microprocessor, radio frequency transmitters and receivers, electrical
components, motors, batteries and other hardware.
    The 1999 season officially began Jan. 9, when FIRST unveiled the
competition and provided kits of parts for 280 teams nationally.  The teams
must build robots that meet size, weight and other requirements before
competing in regionals.

    THE GAME
    This year's competition is called "Double Trouble."  The game requires
that the two opposing teams select an "alliance" partner among all the teams
at the competition.  The four teams, paired into two alliances, compete in
each match.
    Each alliance works to score the most points in two minutes, by
positioning 26-inch diameter Velcro-looped "floppies," their robots and a
five-foot wooden octagonal platform "puck" in a 24- by 28-foot arena.
    After competing with random allies in a series of qualification matches,
all teams are ranked.  The top eight teams then choose allies from the
remaining teams and form eight alliances that do not change for the duration
of the event.  These eight allies then compete in a best two-out-of-three
series of elimination matches until an event-winning alliance emerges.
    The games feature referees, cheerleaders, time clocks and an enthusiastic
crowd in an exciting competitive atmosphere that Kamen has described as
"exciting as the last two minutes of an NBA game."

    DELPHI'S "POWER TO SIMPLIFY(TM)" AWARD
    To further support FIRST's commitment to recognition of outstanding work,
Delphi is sponsoring a major engineering award at the Great Lakes Regional.
Called "The Power To Simplify," the award will be presented to the team whose
robot has the most elegant and advantageous features, as determined by a panel
of judges.
    "From a learning perspective, we want students to tackle the most
challenging engineering concepts possible," Battenberg said.  "But from a
practical application standpoint, we also want students to follow a principle
that our Delphi engineers live by daily:  Simple solutions are often the best
solutions."

    DELPHI'S TEAMS
    Beyond its commitment to getting students excited about math and science,
Delphi's partnerships have produced results on the field:
    -- The Kokomo, Ind., team, "The TechnoKats," is the defending FIRST
       National Champion.
    -- The Pontiac, Mich., team, "Chief Delphi," dominated much of the 1997
       (2nd at the Nationals, Chairman's Award winner) and 1998 (three
       regional wins) seasons.  The team also won 1996's National "Rookie of
       the Year" Award.
    -- The Carman-Ainsworth team, "The Megatron Oracles," placed 2nd at this
       year's Philadelphia Alliance Regional.

    Delphi Automotive Systems, with headquarters in Troy, Mich., USA, is a
world leader in automotive component and systems technology.  Delphi's three
business sectors -- Dynamics & Propulsion; Safety, Thermal & Electrical
Architecture; and Electronics & Mobile Communications -- provide comprehensive
product solutions to complex customer needs.  Delphi has more than 200,000
employees and operates 168 wholly owned manufacturing sites, 40 joint ventures
and 27 technical centers in 36 countries.  Regional headquarters are located
in Paris, Tokyo and Sao Paulo.  Delphi can be found on the Internet at
http://www.delphiauto.com.