[archiver]

Posted by Daniel.

Coach on team #483, BORG, from Berkeley High School and NASA Ames & UC Berkeley.

Posted on 4/16/2000 11:56 AM MST


In Reply to: The Transition posted by Kate on 4/14/2000 12:52 PM MST:



Alright Kate, I guess you're ''you HAVE to respond to this message..'' paid off cuz here I am =)

Since everyone seems to be starting out with their own little story, here's mine:

I graduated high school KNOWING I would start a team. As soon as my feet set ground at SFO after Florida '99, I started making plans to get something going at Berkeley High School, just a few blocks away from where I'd be living. I made some calls and sent some emails and pretty soon I was giving a presentation with GRT's robot to a group of kids during Berkeley High's lunch hour. Things started out real slow. We had a lot of trouble getting the interest level up at the school and once summer came around, didn't once have a successful meeting. People just didn't show up like they said they would. At the beginning of the year we gave another push. Our goal was to get a team of 15-20. The day before the deadline I got a call from the Senior who was quickly becoming our student leader. He was excited. He told me to call another meeting and sure enough, there were 23 odd people ready and waiting to build a robot. Now this was all well and good but we all know it takes more than people to build a robot. We faced our second major roadblock of the project. It was time to find money, tools, and a place to work. We had all the luck in the world when it came to tools and a place to work, but money remained a big stumbling block. We'd called at least 4 parent meetings to try to collect contacts, all of which drew in 3 or 4 parents combined. All the fundraising letters we did send out amounted to nothing. So when kickoff came around and all we had was $4000 from the NASA grant plus whatever we could scrounge up from our members' wallets, we were still $1000 short for registration to nationals (we couldn't keep ourselves away). Many sleepless nights, favors, donations, hamburgers (Jeff cooks a KILLER one pounder), and broken mill bits later, BORG was ready to compete. Ready is a funny word to use though, considering we barely had time to finish building parts, and basically ended up tossing them all in the crate to assemble at the regional. That’s the story.

Now, I think you should know how it felt to be what I was on the team. I should say it was very different, I should say it was sometimes frustrating, and I should warn you that there are other things in college that will begin to compete for your time. I had no trouble at first, going to the workshop for the weekly meetings and helping them come up with preparation activities (we did a mini sumo-robot competition and a mock design phase), this was no stretch for me. It remained ok when I went to kickoff as an advisor, that was a blast (except for them kicking me out of the bar-restaurant because I wasn’t 21). Even well into production I was doing fine. But day by day it began to feel funny. Something wasn’t right and I couldn’t place it at first. I caught myself trying to come up with excuses not to go, which for me – an avid FIRST-a-holic – was very unnatural. It wasn’t until I sat myself down and really went over the whole thing in my mind where I caught the problem.

I love working on this project. I love working with the people who love working on this project. I love building the robots that the people I love working with love building while working on this project (see if you can figure that one out!). However, there was a hole inside me. That was the problem. It wasn’t something wrong with what I was doing, it was something I felt I was missing entirely. I’m in college now, I live in the dorms with all my friends, and each day I was leaving the dorm and my friends to work on this great project. I was missing out on a piece of college life that is so valuable, comparable even to the FIRST competition we all love so much. They say that the four years we spend in college will likely be some of the best years in our lives and I truly believe that. It’s indescribable to those who haven’t witnessed it, but when you do perhaps you’ll understand. As much as FIRST means to me, I belong here. I’ll continue to work on FIRST but I will likely be more of a background figure from here on out.

This is my transition.
-Daniel

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PS – I don’t know quite what happened in Florida but somehow when all of you were tracking each other down and kickin’ it with your fellow CD addicts, I was out to lunch. I wish I could have met you all, and sincerely regret not having done so. You and this message board are a big part of what makes FIRST what it is for me. Thanks for all the great dialogues over the years. =)