Ideally there is something remotely profound in the essay below, but don't get your hopes up. Look at the post time (EST)...
I feel like personally this is going to be a very strange but special season for me, as an annoying pimply teenager who 4 years ago couldn't care much about FIRST, I went on to lead my team into a whole new chapter, and last week I sat on the other side of a Dean's List submission for a kid who might have the same addiction I suffer from
. I hope I'll have a more inspiring story to share later, one that involves putting a student on my shoulders and running up and down Broad Street in Richmond, VA, screaming a lot and scaring passersby.
I think Kim was one of the first people to ever recognize one of my posts where I just let out a burst of energy about FIRST and how much it means to me. I have a lot of difficulty connecting with people in most of my life, I don't like to talk to people, and I'm not usually a burst of emotion... but one day it clicked, and now I will talk to people for 4 or 5 hours at a time about robotics and I will email back and forth people who have no idea what I am like outside of FIRST. I've kept board members for foundations of Fortune 500 companies well past the meeting time because what I perceive as ramblings of a FIRST lunatic obviously captivates them in some way (or they feel bad for me.. either way, I love sponsors!)
I stood up in front of 422 a few kickoffs ago and asked all 30 people in attendance when the team was going to start pushing themselves. I guess something has worked, because the team has doubled its revenue, its FLL support, its membership count, its mentor count, and its commitment all in the span of one year. We aren't lighting up the global community with blue banners (yet), but mentors, alumni, parents, and students are blowing up my inbox with suggestions, ideas, full-on business plans for the team and potential team services, scouting plans, design propositions and even opinions graphics and spirit.
4 years ago our spirit was some silly hats and some foam signs, our scouting was me, a sophomore, and two seniors saying "hey, look at that robot!", our business plan was to hope our single major sponsor would re-up again, and our designs consisted of aluminum angle, the kitbot frame, and some strings that could be pulled every once and a while (a few years) in a machine shop. Now I can see it. I can feel it. Heck, I'm 6 hours away and I can smell it.
I've had the pleasure of doing a lot of watching of 2614 while providing some wordsmith ability and video knowledge to their Chairman's team and cutting into some minor observations in design and other parts of the team (the blessing and curse of having done everything on a team means I never found anything I'm great at except writing and marketing). Watching Dr. Scime (2012 WFA winner... get to learnin' if you don't know who he is) guide all 30-odd mentors and 30-odd students into further improving what is already a strong(ly underrated) FIRST team inspires me, and knowing how much he believes in the program he is willing to sacrifice time where normal people sleep (his personal and professional life should create 18-hour days anyway).
I learned so much in the few hours a week I could put aside homework with 2614, and I really don't know how to tell them how much I appreciate it. I can tell how they started and kept the ball rolling-- it's him. Whether it is a student or mentor, a team needs a captain... a go-to guy. I was mediocre at best. I hope the underclassman in Richmond does as well as he should next year. People like Earl are my idols--they grabbed FIRST life by the horns and figured out how to tame the beast and let it empower those around them. I'm not speaking for them in any way, I'm just commenting on what I've noticed and what I can bring back to VirginiaFIRST and my team this summer.
Great teams are ships on the high seas. Powered by the gale force winds of great leaders, driven by a core group of mentors and students, and aided by dozens of people who are on deck to help keep the boat afloat, they move. FIRST is their compass, and it always points towards their goals. Through the sun and the storms the course will deviate and correct itself, so before you know it, you arrive at your destination.
Or at least that's how I like to imagine it at 3am and wide-awake, with visions of robots in my head.