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Originally Posted by DanielBCR
I don't agree.
FIRST is not just about robots. In order to see what FIRST is about, just look at the name (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). There is no mention of a robot in there.
What FIRST truly is about (in my opinion at least) is spreading the inspiration of the technology field to other people (kids, females, minorities, etc) than what is considered "normal" for the technological field. FIRST helps people succeed. In some areas, FIRST keeps people off of the street and changes their life. FIRST is just another one of Dean Kamen's methods to change the world; we are merely his pawns. FIRST teams make a huge difference in their communities (just look at all of the chairman's award winners. So far, I have not even mentioned anything about a robot. The robot is just merely a side effect, an instrument if you will, of the goals of FIRST. Heck, in FIRST there are PR people, Animation people, Inventor people, and only about 1/2 (my rough estimate) actually work on the robot.
I guarantee you if you walked up to Dean Kamen and asked him, "Is FIRST about robots?", he would immediately say no.
Ok, time to get off of my soapbox
-Daniel
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Most all of the other aspects of FIRST center around the robot. The animation team does and animation of the robot. The inventor team draws the robot. The chairman's team uses the robot to show off some times and talks about the robot building as a way to get people interested in engineering. The robot could actually be anything however. It's just an interesting technical challenge. But you need that challenge there for the other teams to play off of. It's the hook that gets people in and it's the vehicle of transferring engineering knowledge from mentors to students. It's the only way Dean will be able to get students to look at engineers as heros. How many teams have you seen with a chairman's award and absolutely no robot? Now how many teams have you seen with a robot and no chairman's award?
EDIT: BTower, great job with GLR. Despite the weirdness it was a well run field and I never noticed any scoring oddities there.