[techtiger1]

I love the article, I have felt the same way in my academic carrer at points in time. Motivating high school kids especially is a challenging task but that I think is where the inspiration in FIRST comes in. Everyone sees for example Kobe Bryant go out and score 40pts in a game. No one sees the countless hours, he spends in the gym a week getting ready for that 1hr game. Academics is no diffrent everyone sees the great robots, teams and engineering work pays off for some of the elite engineers (I won't say names but you know who I am referring to) that support FRC teams. Nobody see's the hours they put in spent teaching their students cad, or helping teach a specific engineering math calculation that happens to apply to the robot, and finally the extra hours they spend making sure the drivers are fined tuned ready to go. FIRST is unique in that the students involved in these programs get to experience the work ethic of professionals and the great things that happen, when the right amount of work is put in. This to me challanges and motivates the students more then anything.

Hope this helps,

Drew D.