[Madison]

I'm going to step out of rank for a bit this week and answer my own question because I think it's an important topic to examine and I tend to be better at doing that when I write things down.

Increasingly, it seems to me like a lot of participants in FIRST are intent on improving their position in society -- that they're less interested in raising engineers and scientists to the same level of appreciation as sports and rock stars than they are in replacing those stars with engineers and scientists. This is something I've written about before and it's not an ideology I agree with as I don't see benefit in placing any single profession, person or idea on an altar of cultural improtance. Homogenization is only good for dairy products, not people.

When I think about FIRST, I don't immediately see it as an organization that champions the need, appreciation and achievements of engineers. That's not why I'm here, but it's not a bad side effect -- in moderation. Similarly, I don't appeciate Dean Kamen, foremost, as an engineer.

What drew me into this program and what keeps me around long after a saner person would've left are the actions that I've been witness to. FIRST, to me, is an organization that taught me to appreciate engineers, but it did something much greater than that. It taught me that it's okay to challenge the conventional and to make people question why, when and how we value people in our society. It forced me to reexamine my own feelings about being a round peg in a square hole and helped me to harness those experiences and use them as a tool in teaching and inspiring others. Dean Kamen is a brilliant engineer, but at the same time, he has the confidence and scope of vision to go out and challenge people and their ideas.

My participation in FIRST has caused me to stray from engineering and to pursue other career paths. Am I failure? Do I impede the progress of those who're following that written statement listed above because I don't fit in the mold of what FIRST should be about? I don't think I am.

In fact, for me, as someone who was inspired -- not by the robots, or the corporations or the teachers -- but by the willingness and confidence displayed by each and every person and team who challenges their ideas about convention and society, the idea of anyone impeding the progress of those who follow that written goal is terrifying. To me, to suggest that people who don't know what FIRST is really about because they're not involved for the same reasons you are -- whether you follow the written doctrine or not -- is a dangerously close approximation to the same ideas of "convention" and "acceptance" that FIRST challenges in so many other venues.

For me, FIRST's actions have always influenced me much more than their words. I am thankful to have been shown that challenging assumptions and conventions and ideas can lead to a better world for everyone. I'm scared that I am among very few people who see that FIRST is quickly becoming stagnant and complacent in its mission and is falling to victim to the same expectations of conformity that it orginally challenged.