[Joel J]

When I was first introduced to FIRST and the robotics program at my school, I took somewhat of an interest because I loved (and still do) doing math and science. When I began to hear about all the costs that went into making the robot and the fact that you received nothing if you win a regional (or the national), I failed to see why so many people on our team were sooo excited about it. This all soon changed though . . students on our team, along with the engineers slaved for weeks over a robot design that could effeciently carry out the task given. When they finally nailed down the design and put the robot together for the first time, I started to see why people were so excited about this program. The months went by and it was time for the New England regional (and my first regional, ever). I came to the competition not knowing what to expect and how we would even hold up against all these other robots that were present. The competition was stiff and we lost our first few (one or two) matches. Regardless of these losses, our team stuck together and cheered on our stage crew. It was at this point in the day that I realized that we do infact receive a prize..a prize much more valuable than any monetary sum, a prize that is given despite how well or how poorly we do: we begin to understand the value of teamwork and the desire that can be instilled within ourselves to push forward as hard as possible for the betterment of ourselves and the team. Truly a prize I can live with. We managed to come back from our losses and receive number one seed that year, but thats another story. [sorry, I am not the best at these things.]