Posted by Anton Abaya.
Coach on team #419, Rambots, from UMass Boston / BC High and NASA, Mathsoft, Solidworks.
Posted on 4/28/2000 1:25 PM MST
In Reply to: Losing focus on the purpose of FIRST.. someone bring me back posted by colleen on 4/28/2000 10:23 AM MST:
Dear FIRST Community,
Starting your own team is the biggest mistake anybody can ever do in their lives. Yet at the same time, it can be BEST thing that anybody can ever do in their lives. Yes, THE BEST THING.
After only one year of FIRST, my senior year, I was hooked. I could not let go of FIRST. The addiction to it ran through my veins and I felt its power, spirit, determination, enthusiasm, and drive inside me.
Little did I know that starting a team was going to be the BIGGEST headache I'd ever have. Yet each step of the way, I knew I was growing, learning, and spreading my wings. I have grown so much ever since I started my team. I had to deal with people 20 years older than I, ask for money from over 100 major corporations and get rejected, and persuade high school students to feel FIRST the way I did, through experience and interest.
Starting a team was the best thing I have ever done in my life. It has brought me happiness, experience, mentors, friends, and it has kept me away from boredom. FIRST is now an organism inside me, and my body decided to keep it inside to coexist with it.
I had tons of problems with starting a team. I was the only one who knew what to do, and the hardest part was getting people to listen (especially when they're all 5 years and older!)
Problem after problem, I faced it! I worked around it! I fixed it! I dealt with it! I apologized for it! I lost it! I patched it up! I covered it up! I got hurt, I got stressed, and I had regrets for starting a team in the first place. But I knew that I started it, I was going to finish it. I was building a team-- A GREAT TEAM, building a winning robot-- A GREAT robot, and I was going to make it the end-- FLORIDA, with all my kids for this is all for them.
I WANTED TO GIVE BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS WHAT I GOT WHEN I WAS A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT. The whole experience cannot be put into words. It can only be felt, cherished, and remembered for a lifetime.
FIRST is not easy. But it's not impossible either. But it can be difficult. Sometimes we forget beneath all the crap, beneath all the hardships, beneath all the stressful situations, beneath all the problems, beneath all the people who try to hurt you, beneath all the conflicts, ---- that we should still have FUN.
That's the spirit of FIRST. Next year, I am afraid to leave the team I started as I am changing schools most probably. I would miss my team of course, but I'll still be around to start another,, spawn even more, and share the great feeling I get, that tingling sensation that uplifts my mind, spirit, and soul when I see that word.....FIRST.
ANTON ABAYA
Team Leader
Rambots, #419
UMass Boston / BC High
ps. I've even found the girl of my dreams in FIRST. If you're reading this, YOU know who you are.
