One more reason FIRST and engineering education matters.
 

I'm sure most of you are aware of what has happened in Japan by now. I've been following the situation via the new and twitter, and interesting tweet came up on my feed:

The headline you won't be reading: "Millions saved in Japan by good engineering and government building codes". Buts it's the truth.

Being the people-based person that I am, I've never thought about it like that, but it's a really good point. So while we're in full-competition mode with week 2 regionals going on as we speak, I think it's a good time to remember that FIRST is more than robots and competition. And engineering is about more than just improving lives, sometimes it's about saving them. And sometimes the people who build the building to withstand the earthquake are just as heroic as the people who rescue the people from the building that did collapse. And obviously this expands beyond just buildings, to cars and infrastructure and countless other things....

As a four year FIRST member who has no intentions of majoring in engineering, I tip my hats to those of you who did/are/will. I appreciate it more than you know.

Re: One more reason FIRST and engineering education matters.
 

I think what we are doing here today, and in the future of FIRST is not very hidden as we enjoy competition. People being excited about robots to me is being excited about the toils taken to complete a marvelous feat, engineering product(s) in a project with only so much time to use. As we step onto our competition event, we are all glad to be able to show or see other teams and people the work we all have done whether it is by simply having fun by dancing or describing your robot. As we travel to our competitions and even before then as we view animation videos we are all inspired by the efforts of others in the fields of science and technology. Competition is to whet our appetite for our ferocious minds needing to eat up some of the space in our mind after build season is over and robots are one of the symbols that can represent a team, not the only.