My story:

I tried out for the FIRST because none of my friends did it. I wanted to be different. Plus on #16, it's competitive to just get on the team. Basically, I entered my application and went through the interview just to see if I would be picked. Then when I was picked, I was happy, but scared. I knew nothing about building anything.
After my first year on Bomb Squad, I was hooked. FIRST is great for me because I enjoy so many different things. Robot building is a blast, but so is publicity, public relations, fundraising, Chairman's Award. It allowed me to dabble in everything. Then after attending the competitions, how could anyone not be hooked? The energy is enough to make me want to come back for more.
After I gradutated, I was unsure what to do. I was really nervous to join another team that wasn't as successful as Bomb Squad, but now, I realize that I was being selfish. Joining 356 as a college student, has been one of the best things I ever did. Now I know that FIRST can be fun even without winning. I love it because no matter what, I know that I'm making a difference. Medals are nice, but in FIRST we all win.

-becky

Here's why I do it.
 

Simply put... I love to do it.

I enjoy many aspects of FIRST... it includes great aspects that have driven me all of my life.

1. I enjoy mentoring and working with young adults. Not only am I involved with FIRST, but I've also been a Big Brother for 6 years. I am so proud of my Little Brother... he leaves for basic training in the Army tomorrow. His goal is to be a Ranger, and he'll make it. After some major setbacks in his life, he is finally succeeding. I am glad to be a part of his life. If any of you want to make a huge impact on a young person, get involved with Big Brothers.

2. I like to design. Delphi pays me to design machinery for our production lines. I'm decent at it and I enjoy it, so I might as well share it with young adults. I hope that they can see that they can make a good career for themselves by doing something that they like to do, as I do.

3. I'm darn competitive. I played sports all of my life, up until a few years ago, when I finally grew up. After running around a football field for 14 years (grades 4-12, college, semi-pro), I realized that there are better things to do with my time. I even tried coaching football, but didn't see how teaching a kid to tackle is helping them with their life.

Currently, I have given up all other liesure activities so that I can stay in FIRST. My family and church come first, and my job comes second. FIRST is the only thing that I do on my spare time that is outside of family and church. I see my friends once in a while, and I may go golfing 2-3 times a summer, but that's about it. And, like I said above, I love it, and I would have it no other way.

As we were travelling back from the LA Regional, my wife was sitting next to me on the plane. We previously had the agreement that 2001 was going to be my last year in FIRST. Out of nowhere, she says "You cannot give this up. You like this too much, and you cannot leave FIRST." Thank God my wife is supportive of me being involved in FIRST and the TechnoKats, although she just doesn't get the whole FIRST thing.

So, I'm back for more.

Andy B.

Glad to hear Andy
 

Andy, I remember you mentioning that you may not be back next year when we went to the TechnoKats shop. When I heard that I was shocked and thought, "What would the TechnoKats and FIRST be like without Andy Baker?" I'm glad to hear that you will be returining for at least a few more years.:D

Thats about how I am too. Church is really the only thing that comes before FIRST. My family is kind of messed up, of course you're married so you actually have a family. I even let FIRST get in the way of school unfortunately. I got my first 'F' because of it. Its all my fault. It was my first year with FIRST so next year I plan to have my priorities in order but still be very involved with FIRST. Did FIRST get in the way of anyone else's school work?

yeah i suppose first did sorta get in the way of my school work...on the other hand my grades were never something to brag about (qpa: 2.5, give or take, probably take) so first couldnt affect my grades enough so that anyone'd notice

As a College student, being involved (well, a tad more than involved) with FIRST is very challenging. Somehow, I managed to maintain a 3.3 GPA during my freshman year, but FIRST can really be distracting. In the winter, I found myself skipping some of my classes routinely, so I could find more time to go down to the high school and do FIRST. Then, I found myself routinely not doing homework in certain classes. At the time, I was completely aware that I was neglecting my schoolwork, and that did not bother me at all. I knew that after we shipped the robot, I would have about 12 weeks to bring my grades up. However... After we shipped the robot, changing my habits was not as easy as I thought it would be. I kept on telling myself, "I didn't do homework or go to class for the last 5 weeks, so what will another week matter?" This mentality stayed with me probably into April. That's when I realized I needed to start concentrating on my classes, and I worked harder than I ever had just so I could pass my courses. Somehow, I managed to get respectable grades for the semester. The last two months of classes were absolutely miserable, however, since I was under enormous pressure to get perfect grades on everything.

Lesson learned: always do the assignments!!! If you do all the assignments, then there won't be surprises on exams, and you will get good grades.

Next year I look forward to being just as involved with FIRST, but with somewhat less of an ignorant attitute.

Patrick

im gonna be just as (more, if thats even possible) involved too, but i know myself well enough to know that ill neglect my school work again. of course, how many people can say that they neglect school work in order to spend more time doing physics/engineering/etc.? i think first is a good enough excuse to fall behind on youre work, though a lot of people (teachers particularly) would probably dissagree

hmm...
 

Why'd I join FIRST? Seriously, because it was this new club in my high school, and all my dorky friends were joining. I had no want to be an engineer, I didn't even think robotics would be all that much fun. I went to the first meeting, just because I had nothing better to do. And then, after the first meeting, I was in. It was something I wanted to be a part of. It looked like fun and it looked interesting.

I'm still doing it because I still think it's a lot of fun, and it's good experience. A lot of my fondest memories comes from FIRST.

I switched teams after I graduated high school. My old school didn't want alumni back, so I joined a team that I had a friend on. I wasn't willing to give up FIRST that easily. And if all goes well, Michael and I will be starting a new team come next season.

~Christina ºoº

No comment if you plan on telling my parents. ;) But seriously, between Fall and Winter quarter my grades didn't change at all. Although that should be qualified with the fact that I was doing a lot of administrative work during Fall quarter so I still didn't have that much free time but it was easier to put things off. The quarter that I was really hurting was spring quarter. Missing all the class for regionals and nationals took a toll on my grades. Then again I'm also of the opinion that burnout after a year of school and a year of FIRST didn't help too much either. Overall, I did fairly well, am keeping my scholarship, and am staying in the honors program so it's all good. :)

Matt

good job!
 

Wow, Matt... Can't believe you managed to keep your scholarship AND stay in the honor program at the same time... You are simply amazing. You've got to teach me how to do that. You are my hero!!!

Well, seriously though, FIRST does become a really really big part of your life if you CHOOSE to do it. Take me for example... I could've just quite when I was done with high school. I got to be head of machine shop and the driver of the robot, and I thought that was as high as I can get. But obliviously I refused to live with that position. I became person whose opinion actually matters, and people started to take me seriously... At least I hope that's the case...

Fortunately I gave myself a really easy schedule so that I could survive that semester. Getting good grades was out of the question, and I am just glad nothing bad really happened. College does require a lot of commitments into it if you want to do well, unlike senior year of high school where grades doesn't matter as much (because UC only look at grades 10th and 11th grade).

But Burning out after FIRST is THE fatal blow to grades... it wasn't the 6 weeks that hurt the most. It was as if the will of studying doesn't exist anymore, after giving up so much for production and competition.

Matt, I've got to ask you how you put yourself back together after competition! I think as long as we (college students) master the trick to do that, FIRST and College will actually be able to coexist with harmony...

Re: good job!
 

Now I'm someone's hero.....yeesh. ;) But seriously, there wasn't that much of a trick to it. I mean by this point I've gotten fairly used to not having time to do homework or study given this is my fourth year doing FIRST. It's all an issue of realizing which classes you can skip and which you can't. ;) Well, that's true actually. Go to the classes where you don't know the stuff. I was lucky and have gotten CS courses this year where I knew most of what was going on so it didn't require any additional studying in my own time. I also put in less time this year than I have in past years during construction (I was more administration....I never thought I'd ever end up this way....). We're also somewhat lucky at RIT that right after ship date are finals for winter quarter and right after that is Spring Break. Gives us a bit of time to recover. And as far as recovering from competitions goes, I don't know if I have yet so I'll get back to you on it. :) And I'm sure there are plenty of other college students who've done well while doing FIRST (I know of at least one -- my roommate next year). :)

Matt

Re: Re: good job!
 

Hmm...Matthew...you were luckier than me. I knew what classes I could and could not skip...unfortunately, I generally skipped both. :-) Didn't help that my physics midterm was while I was in Nationals, so my prof let me take it when I got back, but...I can't say I was studying physics down in Florida...at all. I put in less time this year, and somehow, my grades suffered, though I was able to save them on the finals. Man...I miss high school, I could miss weeks of high school, and be able to catch up, I miss day of class in college, and it seems like I missed the whole semester. Matthew...you are much better than me at that. Hopefully, I'll improve with time.

~Christina ºoº

Re: So you do FIRST..... Why?
 

I joined up in 8th grade('98), the debut year of the FLL, before it went totally national. Robots have always been of interest to me, and I'm looking for a career in robotic engineering.

I'm still doing it because FIRST is life. Enough said.

The other 2 don't apply to me.

Why do I do FIRST?
 

Someone by the name of Kate Leach joined forces with my brother and forced me to join my freshmen year, with a, you'll love it, you have no choice, but you get to go to Disney talk. I had gone to competitions before when they were still held in NH and thought it looked pretty cool, but never thought I'd ever be able to be on a team and do anything productive. My freshie year I did animation but really wanted to do more, as I learned more and more about the program I saw how great it was. Competition was the icing on the cake, I was amazed to see how huge it was and how excited people got at it. From that moment on I was in love with FIRST. It has been one of the greatest learning experiences in my life, it changed my mind about what I wanted to be when I grew up. From FIRST I have learned so many valuable lessons on life and such and thats why I love it so much and keep coming back!

My son "dragged me" when the robot was having an electrical problem at a regional. The Motorola engineers and teachers graciously accepted me into the team and my wife and I have been involved ever since. (That great t-shirt is what really keeps me coming back though.)
Being an adult on a team allows me to share my love of electronics and fixing things with others. The students are great and working, talking and meeting professionals from around the world is something you don't get to do on a regular basis. I feel that being part of this competition really helps me solve problems at work. It teaches the need to communicate and cooperate with others and to think that anything is possible, you just have to come up with a different idea.
My hat is off to the all the people who work so hard trying to come up with a successful game for us each year and those that put together all the stuff in the background. We never see them but we all benefit from their work.
AL