[Pamela]

I feel that it is very important to incorporate the kids into the design and building process since it is the whole point of FIRST to inspire and teach kids about science. My team for years has had students in the machine shop working on the robot from when school got out until our machinist got tired and kicked us out for the night. You learn so much by actually being there and doing, the feelign oyu have looking at a completed robot that YOU MADE was enough to make me take a look at my priorities in what my decisions on colleges were. Until i joined FIRST all I cared about was getting into a good soccer school, I never once thought about the academics involved (sad, sad, sad). But once I got to work hands on the robot with the engineers helping us out and giving us instruction I decided to go to a good engineerign school so one day I could to work with high school kids in a great program like FIRST. Then my team took a turn for the worse, our engineers decided to build the robot WITHOUT us, I was crushed. Many of my teammates, including me, took six weeks off of work so we could build our robot. Instead our engineers worked on it alone, never includidng us in their plans. If I hadn't know a better program was once at my high school and I wasn't captain, I would have quit, I felt so bad for all the freshman, this made me not want to do robotics anymore, next year, we are sponsorless, but we'll make it, our team has heart and dedication from all the years WE MADE our robot, not from engineers not working with us on a robot.