Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson
Since the title of this thread is "The Meaning of FIRST", I don't think that's even a minor cop-out. FIRST is about inspiration. Check out its mission: 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. You can find that on the FIRST web site.
I've observed a few teams with extremely strong mentor involvement in all parts of the team. One such team struck me a week ago as having an unusually high fraction of the people working on the robot being well past high school. I can imagine that some people view that as undesireable. But do you want to know that team is viewed by FIRST? The Chairman's Award banners they have received say that FIRST likes what they do, and that they represent a model for other teams to emulate. |
My ideals of what FIRST should be almost certainly do not match those of the FIRST leadership. I would suspect, in fact, that that applies to many here. No matter what they say, I will continue to believe that if a community is spending many thousands of dollars per year, the time and energy of many students, teachers, and mentors, the limited resources of a school, and much more into a robotics team, and all it is or is hoping to get out of it is to "inspire" some students, then something is very wrong.
I agree that, in most cases, targeting specific teams with circumstantial evidence (which luckily doesn't happen too much around here) helps no one. As a Bay Area resident I've heard plenty of stories about how 254's mentors never let students touch the robot except for drive practice, and I've also heard from a former 254 member that their mentors were useless and never did anything. Almost certainly, neither is the exact truth, just like all of the half-heard stories or rumors that occasionally pop up here and elsewhere.