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“Changing The World” in a wonderful Glittering Generality like “Truth” and “What is Right.” Due to a few million years of awesome evolution, every one of us humans has a different view of what the world is and how it should be changed and what is causes the changes we see. Even if I can't “experience it first hand for every individual,” I'm going to take a shot at sharing my experience and opinions so that maybe someone out there can make an educated decision.
Last year through the help of a few wonderful teachers I joined a team of nerds who had a lot of thoughts and concepts but no idea how to do anything with them from my rival high school (rivals in everything except robotics now) and through the mentoring of Georgia Tech and skyman9000 (we're the team that happened in between the unsuccessful first year and this year”s 15 teams), we learned ACTION and were introduced to FIRST and formed our own opinions on what it was. As a 15-year-old sophomore I started a team at my own high school this year and led another group of nerds with ideas into the realm of action. I can”t find any fun stereotypes that we fall under because we're not in an area with any dearth of engineers or money (my favourite real estate sign: “From the low $1 millions”) but we still couldn't find anyone who would give us money (I know, we didn't try hard enough) and we only found one mentor who taught us more about life than about robots (which is really a good thing, because he was there to be the mentor and I was there to be the teacher.) We didn't make a robot that was all that great; instead we joined a new culture that was not the bored disinterest we have lived with through our childhood, but was rather the truth and drive to make things happen.
The concept of A Culture or The Real World is flawed in today's society because we have enough freedom and resources to support the numerous cultures that co-exist not so peacefully. Many of you have been talking about FIRST at the prime mover for an engineering based culture, but today's cultures are not as much about activities like building robots or playing sports, they are about attitudes and how we go about doing these activities. The “cultures” that many people believe in that are based on such stupid trivial things as the activities we take part in are merely Granfalloons, meaningless restrictions we have placed on ourselves because we think we want or need them. The culture some of you like M. Krass see as the true FIRST which has become tainted is actually self-motivation and moral integrity. The cultures that are being corrupted with are laziness and greed.
Selfish companies trying to use FIRST to further themselves are tainting the teams they use by parading themselves under the ideal that FIRST has become by its creating so many outstanding citizens. Greed on a more personal level is using FIRST and we see it through those who are too worried about winning the competitions for personal glory or by eliminating other mentors as though they were competition.
The culture of sloths is infecting FIRST and creating these teams where the students have no drive to even help with their robot, they just want to see a finished product to put their name on. Through this, some teams face the build as a fun thing to watch rather than a chance to take action and learn by this action.
These two cultures are killing off the strong culture FIRST is by hijacking its altruistic ideas and using it as a vessel for their own filthy ways. What we need to do is not to try to protect the literal parts of FIRST that have created this culture of honor and action and focus on finding other ways to bring gracious professionalism into a position of prominence in our society. FIRST has done what the Boy Scouts once did; it is an institution that trains children who have potential but no direction to be strong adults who can not only figure out how to solve the problems they are faced with, but have the motivation to put these ideas into action.
Through forcing me to teach myself how I want to live my life, FIRST has changed my world and brought me into a culture that I am proud to be a part of will try my hardest to keep honorable. FIRST will continue to change the world through the culture that all of us in this organization are part of so long as we preserve the integrity that we know and spread it to others.
Paul Luffel
P.S: Jeremy, I don't think I got to tell you in person, but you and Anne changed my life.
P.P.S: Through all of the ideas and concepts on this forum, one of you English nerds could probably put together and entire book on the FIRST Philosophies.
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