[dlavery]

May 1997: Amy F. became the first student from our team to receive an intern appointment at NASA. This was followed by NASA support for her grad school and her current pursuit of a PhD in astrophysics. Amy establishes the groundwork for other students to become NASA interns based on their FIRST team experience.

April 2000: The first time a student on the team states that his experience with the team was the causal factor for him to get cleaned up and able to deal with severe substance abuse problems.

March 2003: a father that has been helping with the team tells us how the ability to work on the robot with his son has changed them both. They see and appreciate each other in new ways, and their relationship has been significantly expanded and strengthened.

May 2004: Alisha W., an alumnus of our team, is assigned as the FIRST Israel Regional Director and begins working to bring the program to the Middle East. After an enormous amount of work, this is followed the next year by the FIRST Israel regional competition, with 12 new Israeli teams and a brand new set of relationships between FIRST, GM, The Technion, NASA, The Ministry of Science and Technology, the U.S. and Israel.


FIRST is about so much more than the competitions. With all due respect to the posts above, if the very best days of every team are defined just by the opportunities to collect plastic trophies, then we need to think again about what we have accomplished. I bet with a little more thought, we can focus on the things that are really important - the future careers created, the lives improved, and changes made to our society and culture. The competition events are just momentary celebrations of what we do. The real work - and real effect - takes place before and after the competitions. And that is where the important stuff happens.

-dave