[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by Erin Rapacki

Its unfortunate you think that way.

I was an intern at iRobot last year in Home Robots; while there, I made some friends on the G&I side and my senior project is in G&I... and get this, I'm not a Mechanical/Electrical/Software engineering student either! I'm Industrial Engineering (who wants a Mechanical Masters, but I'm not qualified to do hard-core design analysis work yet). My senior project is all mechanical, I learned how to machine/prototype/hack-design in FIRST... so that's enough for this round of project prototyping. My mechanical project partner is doing the hard-core analysis, but I'm coming up with the effective material-handling methodologies because, well, my frame of reference from FIRST and working at HSES, HSSI, DEKA, PW, Gillette, and iRobot has giving me a well-rounded view (of course, well rounded people are pointless). Actually, the reason why I'm a roboticist for a respectable company at such a young age is because I'm interested in the field, I have a hunch on where it will go in the next few years, and I'm crazy passionate about doing anything I can to push that field further into new products and development. I have no idea what other odd fields I can come up with but there is definately more.

iRobot has an intern-to-full hire program to it where if you're right out of college and they don't know you, they'll hire you on as temporary for a few months (intern/contractor) then put you on full time if they like you.

It's worth a try; if you want the recruiter's information: PM me. He's always looking for talented/passionate people no matter what your academic/experience level is. The way they hire is: if you're smart and they like you're personality; they'll enjoy working with you and teach you what you need to know.

Act like a passionate roboticist, and you'll get paid to be one .

Thanks. I did not know that. Every single EE job description I looked at for IRobot said at least two years of experience except for the internship on their website. In all actuality I will only be missing less than 4 months by the time I graduate.

(of course, well rounded people are pointless).

I would actually have to say robotics is a field where being well rounded is a must. I've bought a psychology book because of the fact that three robotics other books made reference to that very book. Another one of my books has a chapter entirely devoted to theories in animal behaviorism.