Quote:
Originally Posted by NachoCheese
Each competition is a learning experience for each student, and to be taught that the point of the competition is to win isn't expressing the ideas of FIRST.
The FIRST mission statement says:
"Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership."
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Not to clobber your first post ever—because this isn't directed at you in particular—but I hate when people drag out some random mission statement to justify what FIRST means to them. (I agree with your main thesis.)
Let's identify these mission statements for what they are: general principles in a concise format that are neither intended to be, nor useful as substitutes for explicit rules and implicit conventions. They write these to fill appropriate spaces on brochures. The real mission statement comes from the examples that all of FIRST's participants are setting—from the top management down to the teams competing. And the real mission statement is fluid and ever-changing.
I think an interesting example of this was the change in Dean's demeanour when making his speech yesterday: he toned down the language of conflict between popular culture and FIRST, and I think we're going to see that détente eventually reflected in the attitudes of people who once decried the involvement of seemingly-vapid celebrities in the affairs of FRC.
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1 I don't think Dean has fully wrapped his head around that change: he stumbled at one point, and it seemed he was about to make one of his habitual criticisms—then he paused, presumably thinking better of it, and went in another direction.