Quote:
Originally Posted by Conor Ryan
YES.
And every team is impacted by HQ's in ability to explain that. Helping run a team is like running a small business, and well almost all aspects are covered. Your product, which is where engineering comes into place is where all the focus is, but clearly all the press we get is about the engineering aspect. I would love to hear somebody at the top of the house discuss how FRC is great for a business career, because I will tell you that it is, and it isn't that hard to sell people on that concept. (Yes I know we have the entrepreneurship award, honestly it doesn't do the business aspect justice)
Also, for as long as I have been involved I haven't heard too much from KPCB and they got one hell of a resume on their hands, they brought you AOL, Amazon.com, Navigenics, Citrix, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Geron Corporation, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Nebula, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Verisign, WebMD and Zynga all at a very early stage, seeing that they back FIRST really speaks to how well the program is designed too.
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Not only that, I believe KPCB has been sponsoring FIRST for most if not all of its 25 years of existence.
While it would be easy to troll you by pointing to the Entreprenuership Award, I will say that FIRST could be doing a better job at publicizing literally everything else that goes into running an FRC team besides engineering. On 422 some of the best members have not gone into engineering and do not plan on going into engineering. However every member has learned valuable skills while running the team as well as utilizing their talents from machining to graphic design to marketing to strategy. Whether or not they leave for a STEM field, they all have learned about the benefits of the program.
Without a mostly coherent business plan, 422 would not be able to survive, much less thrive and continue to improve. Our plan has covered many contingencies that have been exercised, like what happens when you don't have a teacher sponsor (we're in year 8! If you would like us to not see this for a ninth straight year, let me know), what happens when a sponsor pulls the rug out from under you a week before your biggest competition, and how to expand the team in a sustainable way should we balloon from 28 to 80 members over 3 years (at least I like to think we are ready).
We love to talk about every part of our team, I just wish FIRST would as well. I know training the next leaders of accountants isn't as sexy to defense contractors that sponsor FRC as the next leaders in ICBM design, but training and education for both those and other fields have a place in our program.