[Joe G.]

As we prepare to start up our team again this year, with several major changes in organization planned, I have been reading through several old threads on FIRST philosophy, on competitive spirit vs. inspiration, on Student build vs. Mentor build, etc. Most of these threads are dominated by abstract-thought posts, mostly by long-time Mentors and Engineers. However, one topic that I haven't seen addressed along these lines very much is stories of when FIRSTers, particularly current or former students, were inspired by FIRST.

So in this thread, you may post stories of when you were inspired. Was it a gradual event, over the course of several years in FLL, FTC, and FRC? Was there a specific moment, like your first regional, seeing a Beatty bot for the first time, or a memorable moment during build season?

For engineers and others who have never been in FIRST as a high-school student, post when you were inspired to help out with FIRST's goals. Or, if an event completely unrelated to FIRST inspired you to be an engineer, post that.

I'll start. I joined FLL in fourth grade. Throughout my first three years, I found it very fun, but not life-altering. Then in my fourth year, we went to our first competition, a "scrimmage," which was actually larger than most state competitions. We saw a team pull off a task that we had been trying and failing to do the entire season in a completely different and spectacular method. On the car ride home, me and another team member started discussing ways to combine their method with ours. We eventually went to my house, where we worked for over 5 hours nonstop to completely redo our original design and program for that task, with it eventually working. As I went to bed that night, I thought "How sweet would it be to do that for a living?" From that moment on, I've been inspired.



You know you've overdosed on FIRST when you talk about joining it like a religious experience.