[dpc131]

So, I too was bitter the first few years about some of the robots that were totally built in a machine shop, even as a mentor. I even heard rumors of engineers paid to sit in the classroom. It took a couple years of hearing the same story of "it's not about the robots" and then seeing it first hand.

I started as a mentor right out of college having never been exposed to FIRST. Now 11 years later with two kids under three, I'm taking a break from mentoring for a few years. In my place, three of the mentors on the team this year were students on our team 5 years ago, now teaching systems engineering to the team. They have graduated and are working as engineers in the area. Another formal student told us when she was a freshman that she liked that 'mechanical stuff,' but she was a girl so didn't want to do it. Now, she's a mechanical engineer working on my project at work.

So the 'mentors' in these cases are a product of FIRST and embody why the robots are built, not because of awards but because of inspiring young people to pursue engineering. It's been a joy seeing this over the last year or two and that's what FIRST is all about, not the robots.