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Unread 14-08-2003, 21:24
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Ken Patton Ken Patton is offline
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In Dean's Words

Recently, there has been significant discussion in these forums about the purpose of FIRST, the roles of students, the roles of engineers, etc. I was disappointed at times that some people might not completely understand what I thought were key ideas about the purpose of FIRST.

Then I realized that it was probably due to the fact that its been a long time since Dean has given us a good long speech, one with details and examples and analogies. Those of us that were fortunate enough to hear his Kickoff speech in 1998 were treated to (imho) The Best of Dean Kamen.

The transcribed text of Dean's 1998 Kickoff speech was recently re-installed on the Huskie Brigade website (go to www.huskiebrigade.com and click on DEAN KAMEN).

It's worth your time to click over and read it.

I hope you find it entertaining and informative. Keep in mind that in 1998 the Kickoff was attended by only team mentors, and that there were only a couple hundred teams.

Enjoy,
Ken
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Unread 14-08-2003, 22:13
Ryan Foley Ryan Foley is offline
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Wow, thats a good speech.

Thanks Ken, for posting that. I might show it to my team. It really shows wha Dean created FIRST for, what it's purpose is.
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Unread 14-08-2003, 22:38
Ashley Weed Ashley Weed is offline
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Nice! I could almost hear Dean speaking those words..... greatest line for me...

So the point of FIRST is really to do for important things what our culture has done for so many unimportant things. And the way our culture does this is it makes superheroes out of unimportant things.
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Unread 14-08-2003, 22:57
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Thanks for the post. I think it's good for the new teams (like my own) to get to experience his speeches to actually behold the power of FIRST.

(i sound like a cheese commercial)

That made me realize just how important FIRST is and how important it's purpose is. Hopefully more rookie teams will read the speech and get the take home message.
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Unread 15-08-2003, 08:58
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Thanks Ken. Hopefully those who come here and regularly declare their version of FIRST's goals as law will read this and understand that there's room for all varities of teams FIRST as long as we're all successful at inspiring our students, even though it may be in our own unique ways.

Mike
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Unread 15-08-2003, 09:30
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Holy cow, Ken... this is great stuff.

This should be required reading for every FIRSTer and especially every new FIRST team.

Whenever someone starts the "100% student built - we don't want any engineers" debate, we should just refer to this speech. Ken, please make sure this stays on the Huskie site.

Andy B.
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Unread 15-08-2003, 11:54
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This year's closing...

Thanks for posting that - it's a very good speech that I will be pushing on my team.

While reading this, I remembered that I really enjoyed this year's closing speech at the nationals and I transcribed it. I suppose you could still watch the real thing (hearing it is always best), but incase anyone wants it in text, here it is:


Dean:
It’s rare to see students from Middle School, High School, College, working at something very intense along with parents, teachers, engineers, mentors, professionals, from a whole community, because I think it’s an unintended consequence of the culture of America, but we’re really good at efficiently separating all those people which is why I think so many kids never think about science or engineering students are separated very early in life, they go to school engineers are in laboratories or companies, manufacturing floors. students rarely get to see what real scientists, engineers and professionals do. This is extraordinary, that’s why it’s important. When kids get out of school at the end of the day, their interaction with adults: maybe it’s television; seeing what we call superstars, or superheroes; not realistic representations. They have parents that are working hard these days, probably both of them working; maybe two jobs. For all sorts of reasons that I can’t explain, it’s pretty clear to me that it’s a rare event that students get to really interact with the real heroes, the real professionals, that build this country; that provide our standard of living, that are working toward your own and their own futures; it’s perhaps good news and bad news about FIRST. The fact that we can uniquely put all these people in a room, and allow all these students to interface and interact with all these very real people, it seems to me is what makes FIRST so special and it is why every year I ask you to what I’m going to ask you to do again. But it’s for the first time this year that I realize that while our board struggles with how we can grow bigger, faster, it’s the good new and the bad news of FIRST. The most unique and important characteristic is it tears town the separations that are so efficiently put in our society to keep all these groups separated. Which means then that the only way that FIRST will work is if we keep all of these engineers and mentors and teachers and parents and students together. That’s a very labor intensive exercise. It requires enormous effort by individual people. It doesn’t scale up unless every time we get more students, we get more mentors, so that the constant is the ability to put real, important heroes of our culture in direct contact with the students and have them all working hand in hand on a project; all figuring out what’s really possible; all with gracious professionalism. Well, if that’s the nub of it, and it’s gonna continue in my mind to take this extraordinary effort by all of the people that have made this possible for all of the students; this personally individual effort I will ask you what I ask you by tradition every year: all the students, stand up and look right at those mentors and professionals and teachers and parents and thank them for what they’re doing for you.
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Unread 15-08-2003, 13:36
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Al Skierkiewicz Al Skierkiewicz is offline
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WOW!,
I like everthing I have read here except this part of the Dean 1998 speech...
"What this organization is about is not education per se." For me it is about the "education". I have opened new ways of looking at work problems as a direct result of my working in FIRST. I do not only learn from Wildstang engineers and students, or even from Andy Baker, Joe Johnson or Ken Patton (and I have learned a lot from these people and others too numerous to name). I do learn from all of the people I meet and talk with and the robots I see. I am excited, thrilled in fact, when meeting anyone I have never talked to and getting to start up with a common subject like robots. Anyone who comes into this great "community" and misses those opportuities is really missing a lot. My idea of the best FIRST has to offer lies in these few examples.
1. A student has an epiphany, decides that it would be a good idea to plan on attending a college or university when they had no direction before.
2. A team member who is heard to say, "I didn't know you could do it that way! I will have to try that."
3. "Don't be discouraged, you can ask anyone of us for help and we will gladly help you." or "Go ask Team XXXX if they have a (name your part) to spare."
4. A first time attendee asking "Why are you cheering for that team, they just beat you?"
5. Hearing "Good Luck" or "Hi Al!" or "nice bot!" 500 times a day and knowing that those guys are not always talking to you but they mean it every time.
6. Having a working relationship with 20,000 people, without having met most of them and knowing that I can turn to anyone of them, ask a question and get an informed, intelligent response as if I knew them and worked with them everyday.
It is for reasons such as these that my wife Dottie and I continue to be a small part of this competition and sell it wherever we have the chance.
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Last edited by Al Skierkiewicz : 15-08-2003 at 19:06.
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Unread 15-08-2003, 16:39
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Yes!

Huge kudos to Ken and the Huskie Brigade for grouding us all in the core beliefs and vision that have spawned all of our efforts.

Andy is right (has he ever been wrong?), this is required reading.

Al, I feel the same way you do. For me, it is the education. I get much more than I give, work with and now know some incredible people around the country, and have made 20K+ friends in the process.

While every individual may feel differently about details, the bottom line is that it is our task to work at "transforming the culture." Regardless of what anyone else tells you, it is happening. I see evidence in my school, community, all over the country and now worldwide. It can be a messy process, there are bumps in the road and not as many people "get it" as we would like, but it is happening.

Two days ago I experienced a very bittersweet moment that solidifies this for me. I met with my boss and school principal who is leaving for a job in another school district next week. In ten years of teaching and four in business, he has been the finest boss I have ever had. He told me his greatest moment in education to date (he was previously a teacher and coach who won championships, and a vice principal) was being in Houston when 103 was announced as the Chairman's winner. Tears started to well up in his eyes. His plan is to bring FIRST teams to the two high schools that reside in his new district and he has already begun discussing it with the principal of the other high school there.

Talk about culture shift. Wow. And I know stories like this one abound around the country. Let's all keep our eyes on what Dean has said. Thanks again Huskies!
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Unread 15-08-2003, 20:07
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Quote:
And it is literally the only organization that I know of thats trying to do that.
This is a bit dated though. There are plenty of organizations that exists now that help to get kids involved with science and technology. I went to Boston to go see ASIMO which is the robot that has the comercial that airs sometimes. Now it really amazed me at how crowed it was. All of the showings sold out and the number of kids there was really cool. They also emphazied how differnt fields of science were used. (biology surprised me) Though it was a bit creepy about how everyone was clapping for a robot. Basically you have to make it interesting anyway you know how.
Quote:
You sit there and you wonder, why these inner city kids, we don’t live in a ‘Leave it to Beaver’ generation. We don’t live in a place where kids go "yeah, thats fun to do that,
You know I would commit on this but.... can someone tell me what he is alluding to???
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Unread 15-08-2003, 20:47
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Quote:
Originally posted by Al Skierkiewicz
WOW!,
I like everthing I have read here except this part of the Dean 1998 speech...
"What this organization is about is not education per se." For me it is about the "education".
Maybe he should have used "academics" instead of "education". Most of my best lessons in life came outside the class room. In fact I can't think of any really important ones I learned in a classroom. We do teach people things in this program. The lessons they learn are valuable and the impact is life-long. But we don't do it in the manner most people think of when you mention "education". So in a way we are educating people and in another we aren't. That's why I tend to refer to school-type learning as "academics" and other learning as "education"

"Never let academics get in the way of getting a good education" - My Mom, the college professor
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Unread 16-08-2003, 12:13
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Quote:
I like everthing I have read here except this part of the Dean 1998 speech...
"What this organization is about is not education per se." For me it is about the "education".
When I first heard Dean say something like this at the 2001 Kick-Off, I just about jumped out of my seat and charged the stage. Since then, I have thought about what he said and meant, and I now tend to agree with him.

One of the dangers that FIRST has to avoid is getting high-jacked by the educational system. Therefore, it must distance its mission from being another educational activity.

FIRST's mechanism for achieving change is to provide motivated students who have a context in which to place their academic pursuits, to the existing educational system.

It is the responsibility of other entities to integrate FIRST into their existing processes to take advantage of educational benefits. Sort of like the commercials, "FIRST doesn't make students. FIRST makes students better."

Most of us provide some kind of off-season training for our students so that they can jump in and be effective during the six week build phase and during the competitions. It's up to us (not FIRST) to learn and teach.

BTW, Dean made an excellent speech at the 2001 Closing Ceremonies (FIRST 10th anniversary). We did not video tape that speech and it predated the broadcast and archives (I think). However, if someone has that one on videotape, it would be a super thing to transcribe.
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Unread 17-08-2003, 23:06
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Thanks Ken. Just finished reading Dean's speech. I agree with Andy that this should be required reading for all who enter the FIRST Domain. In order for us to have a substantial impact on our culture we need to have a clear understanding of how we are to accomplish that mission. The truth in Dean's words is becoming apparent everyday that we read in the paper of jobs that are leaving the U.S. to some lower payed work force in another country. We are in great danger of losing the Technological edge America has always enjoyed. Through our direct and difficult effort, however, I believe we can ensure that America won't become a "Banana Republic". That is why I devote so much into this. Everytime we light a kid up inside and give that child a sense of purpose we have successfully changed the American culture.
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Unread 17-08-2003, 23:11
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Ken, thank you very much for the link. I might just use some of that for our own web site.
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