[Anne Shade]

I read these posts after I have spent my Sunday preparing for yet another training session for our new rookie team 832. I started to ask myself why I am still doing this. I think that the FIRST program has many different levels that allow growth throughout your involvement. Through my high school career I learned many things that have brought me here to Georgia Tech to study mechanical engineering and to allow me to succeed. But I didn't stop there. I kept thinking there was more to it than just getting me interested in engineering. I decided to continue my involvement by starting a new team. That, believe it or not, has many new challenges that I had never encountered before. The politics and the challenge of having to explain things to those who have never been exposed to such a program. We had neer fully designed a robot on our own and now we were being expected to. I learned a whole lot from this experience. I think that no matter how long you are involved in this program at whatever level, you always learn something new. There are other programs once you get to college that are challenging but none have such interation between high schools and industry. Where else can you impact the lives of high school students and pass on your knowledge? I don't know when I would ever stop my involvement in FIRST. It gives me such a rush to be able to help others achieve their goals and surpass them.