Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

My older son found out about FIRST from his guidance counselor in his junior year. She thought he would like it. He had to join Team 346 which was 20 miles away. The next year, the 2002 season, he co-founded Team 975 at his school.

I got involved because I'm the Dad with the car. I helped a bit on Team 346 and then became a mentor for Team 975 for 5 years. My younger son was in it the whole time, ever since middle school, as was the younger brother of the other co-founder. Interestingly, the two of them became the lead drivers for the last couple years. Not to mention doing the programming and electrical work. Pays to start young, eh?

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

I found out about our team in 8th grade, when I became best friends with a girl who had a brother on the team at the time. She had gone to some of their meetings and had a team shirt. I don't know why, but I thought that that shirt was the coolest thing since sliced bread. So at the beginning of our freshman year, after she assured me that there were things to do with the team that didn't involve building the robot (I didn't think I was experienced enough), I went to the introductory meeting and signed up.

All I really remember about the first few months of that fall was that the meetings were extremely boring (learning about the difference between programming loops really sucks when you neither know nor care about programming). I didn't go down into the shop until the second-to-last work session of the year, and I only went because one of the mentors commented on the lack of girls in the shop and I didn't have much to lose by going. Somehow, I managed to be totally hooked by the time kickoff came around, and I have been ever since.

Now that I think about it, if I had been able to go to the off-seasons that first fall, I probably would have been hooked sooner, but that's all in the past now :)

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

Of our two team founders and their two little brothers, three went on to engineering school (one on a FIRST scholarship) and one became a machinist. Unfortunately, my elder son's studies at VCU were interrupted by a stint in Iraq, where he was killed in action.

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

When I graduated high school in 1995 I still kept in touch with one of the tech ed teachers there. In the early summer of 1998 (June?) he mentioned he was going to start a team at the school to compete in the 1999 season and if I had any interest in helping the team and get it off the ground. Hence I became one of Team 237's original founding members. 237's first meeting was in Sept 1998 shortly after the school year started, I think something like 30 students turned up and a dozen parents along with others like me who had some type of specialty background to help the team and mentor. I think the new team met once a week until build started, we did lose a few people but still had 22 students or so once build was underway. Little did we know what we were getting into designing a robot to pick up floppies and tow the puck around.

I am one of the few that have been with 237 since the beginning. there were 2 years my involvement was very limited due to work and other outside commitments but have always been part of the team and even made a few meetings during those years. In late 1999 I got a job at a robotics company (injection molding) due to being involved with FIRST. I am still there today.

Jason Hartmann,

Team 237, Sie-H2O-Bots (Black Magic 1999, Sun Seekers 2000, Tribe 2001-2011, and back to Black Magic again, 2012)

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

I first heard about FIRST in middle school. Well, kind of. I knew that my middle school had a LEGO Robotics team, and I knew it was connected to the science club (which I was in), but I didn't really like the guys on the team. So even though I was interested, I decided not to try it.

Then high school came around. My school was reviving their FIRST team after a three or four year hiatus, and the school's electronics/woods teacher was trying to rally up enthusiasm for it in her classes. She hadn't been involved before, but she was really excited about the idea. I wasn't in an electronics class at the time, but my best friend was. He wanted to go to a meeting. So even though I wasn't too sure of my ability to fit in or contribute (I wasn't engineering minded in particular, I liked art and other such frilly things), I made a deal with him that I'd go to a robotics meeting if he went to a drama meeting.

I didn't like robotics very much at first. It was filled with a bunch of people that were kind of jerks (All of them dropped off the face of the earth when they learned that FRC wasn't like Battlebots and that it involved doing some work), but I stuck with it because I ended up making a bunch of promises to organize stuff. I ended up becoming the president by the end of my freshman year because I was the person who just organized stuff and made sure everyone was 'in the loop'.

Competition eventually started, and after that I was hooked. Turns out I was totally wrong about not fitting in, in time the team became pretty much my family. I've changed teams around a bit in the past four or five years, but I still love FIRST and the environment surrounding it.

Oh, and theater? Totally not a thing I'm involved with anymore. Turns out my best friend kind of won that deal, oops.

Back when I was in fourth grade, which was the 2002/2003 school year, I was a big lego fan and my science teacher told me that there was a team involving legos that I could join. Mom let me, and I discovered how cool robotics was. I signed up for the middle school BEST team and got in in 6th grade, and in 7th grade I formally met the Robonauts. I had met various Robonauts before when they mentored and volunteered, but I didn't realize they were high schoolers. First chance I got I signed up for the FRC team, and the rest is history. My little brother followed me through the ranks, and my best friend to this day is the driver I spotted for back in BEST (she didn't even know my name until midway through the 7th grade season, apparently I was just "that little blond kid with the jigsaw" ). My mom is the Team Mom, and will remain the Team Mom even though both her kids are graduated from the team. It's kind of magical how I went from legos to replacing most of the iron in my blood with aluminum, and all thanks to my elementary school science teacher.

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

My two friends were in FRC team 1094, so they invited me to the 2010 regional competition, so I came and I watched a few matches and I wasn't really interested, I thought it was kind of boring. so a few weeks later they invited me to their Team open house, I went and I got to drive the robots and I thought that was just awesome, then After that I decided to join the team, and once I got in I was HOOKED!! And Since then Its gave me allot of choices for the future. :)

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

I found out about FIRST the first week of freshman year in high school. It came to me in the form of a flyer hanging on the walls, encouraging students to apply for the Robotics team. This intrigued me, so I resolved to apply. I was accepted, and I have to admit, being a part of Robotics has has led to some of the most rewarding experiences of my high school years.

I'm about to finish off junior year, and am anticipating my last year of Robotics to be the best! while at the same time sad that it is my last year to be part of it as a student. I hope to become involved as either a mentor or volunteer in the future though!

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

Some guy with bad shirts and silly hair dragged me to a team meeting.

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

I joined the "Robotics Club" in grade 8, which turned out to be an FLL team. I was hooked since our first event. I go to a high school that doesn't have an FRC team, but I still keep in contact with my old FLL coach, and he emailed me one day to go check out a workshop 907 was putting on. That was the last week of December before the winter break. I had no idea what I was getting into, and was late joining the team because most had come to meetings since the start of the school year. 40 hours a (build/competition season) week later, I'm still here and not going anywhere. :D

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

I saw a flyer for 1293's first meeting and thought FIRST was, well, the thing before second. Not sure if we were talking Legos or Battlebots or what, I drove to the school for the meeting.

It's been all downhill since. ;)

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

At my school, there is an afternoon at the beginning of the year where all the clubs set up tables and try to recruit members. The new robotics club had a table and I learned about what FRC was and came to one of the first meetings. Since then, I have developed an addiction. ;)

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

My oldest sister was one of the founding members of our team (we started back in 2008). So essentially since I was in the 6th grade I had been hearing about robotics. Starting around '09 I would visit at a meeting or two during the year with my little sister - usually 'epic weekend', our school's 3-day winter weekend that's always the weekend before ship... er... bag; famous for deliriously tired/hilarious moments - and I went to the Buckeye Regional every year. Then my other older sister joined, too. By the time I was a freshman, I knew pretty much everyone on the team, and after years of hearing about it/seeing it, I was excited to be part of it myself.

And then my team almost didn't exist my freshman year. But we survived! And I'm really glad we did!!

Re: How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?
 

I played softball every season from when I was five years old until the end of my Junior year of high school, when I realized that it wasn't fun any more, due to an emphasis on "Winning is what matters the most." So, I looked for a new hobby, and a friend suggested I check out the robotics team (this was the year after the Killer Bees were finalists at Disney World, and I didn't even know we had a team!). So, I applied, was interviewed by 33's founding-mentors Pam Williamson and Tim Grogan, and joined the team my senior year of high school. ...this will be my 10th year involved with FIRST. Feels like I just started yesterday.