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Battlebots
My name is Nola Garcia and I have participated in FIRST for 6 years. I hold Dean Kamen in the highest regard as well as FIRST. Both of my sons have participated in FIRST and the older one just graduated from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering. I do believe that FIRST was influencial in his choice of careers. My team was among the teams who took first place in the Galileo Division at Nationals. We have been recognized for our enthusiasm and love for FIRST. I am also the Education Director at BattleBots.
That being said I ask you this - can a person like chocolate ice cream AND strawberry ice cream at the same time? Does either flavor have to be bad for the other to be good? This year our students are participating in BOTH FIRST and BattleBots. There is no conflict for us. FIRST has always said that it is about Inspiration. They have inspired thousands of young people. BattleBots IQ has a high school robotics curriculum and is about Education. ( Teams that compete in BattleBots do not have to be part of the curriculum program).
One of the posts said that BattleBots is only about profit - well I have to set the record straight.
BattleBots IQ is a not for profit venture. The creators - Trey Roski and Greg Munson have poured hunderds of thousands of dollars of their own money into this. They wanted to take some of their profits from BattleBots and put them into a program that would benefit young people. The registration for Battlebots is LESS than $100
How, I ask that person, is that taking advantage of young students and schools? The high school teams will have the same opportunity to have their robots made into toys and receive the same profits as the regular Battlebots builders do. There is prize money as well as possible scholarship money available for the contestants as well.
As far as the dates for the competition and where it is held - the major television network needs a certain amount of footage by a certain date and the dates were chosen for that fact alone. Universal Studios has a facility that is perfect for the taping of the competition for the show. Universal is willing to discount thier prices for the teams as well as helping to find reasonable lodging for them.
When I first joined the FIRSt team I was impressed by Dean's mission to get kids excited about science, engineering and technology. I have seen first hand many kids as well as professionals like physicians, engineering professors, lawyers, major corporate executives from Intel and Microsoft get excited about BattleBots and it's effect of getting kids excited about engineering. Many have told me that they are happy to see so many young people designing robots as a result of watching the show. Physics teachers have told me that it is the first time in their career that they are popular with their students because they want explainations about how the robots work. Dean's dream of having engineers be heroes is alive because I see kids swarm Mark Setrakian, Jim Smentowski, Donald Hutson and others who are great engineers.
I leave you with this thought - My hope is that both FIRST and BattleBots prosper and draw to them the teams that will most benefit from what they have to offer.
I look forward to replies.
Thanks,
Nola Garcia
Team #59 ( FIRST)
Buddy Lee Stay in Your Seat ( Battlebots)
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