Quote:
Originally Posted by davidthefat
In all honesty, I thought college students were supposed to do very experimental, at the cutting edge of technology research, not playing games with robots. Well I make it sound silly, but honestly it sounds really childish compared to the research papers that college students publish with their complex engineering vocabulary and stuff.
I am eager to go to college to do the very serious research and experimental stuff. FIRST really made be get over the "video game programmer" stage, I really want to work at JPL and do really hardcore research when I am in college. I also want to pursue the doctorate degree in comp sci too.
May be its just me, but the research part of science really appeals to me.
Yea, but what do i know? Im just a Junior in highschool with big dreams.
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The discovery of new ideas and the application of those new ideas into new products are two very, very important things. While they aren't wholly mutually exclusive, I believe FIRST, as well as many other programs named above, are more about the latter.
This is not to discount the importance of the former. Many new products are the result of old products plus a newly discovered principle or piece of knowledge. While talented comp sci students are welcome anywhere, perhaps a program other than Collegiate FIRST would serve you best*.
You do bring up the point that while in high school getting students into any sort of STEM is beneficial, many students doing FRC or FTC in high school would prefer to do research and fall out of the Collegiate FIRST Competition (CFC) "market." That and the existence of many other programs may be a barrier to the CFC's success.
*Okay, that sounded really harsh/mean. I didn't mean it to be. I'm not sure there's a nice way to say that you want to be there more than here, but that's essentially what you're saying anyhow.
A fair point. I think I'll just sit around and see what happens, not being involved myself.