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Unread 23-02-2002, 11:11
junkyarddawg junkyarddawg is offline
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Wink What is Fair?

Martin:

I'm sure by now you have received plenty of feedback on this subject, so I'm responding to the subject in general. This is no more than my heart felt opinion.

This is my 7th year participating in this amazing program and I have worked hard to keep the teams that I work with on the original path for this program. The concept of USFIRST was to create a made for TV technical sport to market education in science and math in much the same way that pro sports on TV markets a career in pro sports. So, the group of young people that this is aimed at, is the noninvolved young people that currently have no interest in science and math and herald pro sports and rock'n'roll stars as their "wanna be just likem when I grow up" idols.

Therefore, one of the most important aspects of FIRST is what the noninvolved spectators see of FIRST. If they see highly competitive machines backed by highly spirited teams, not only do they think "I could do that", but "Iwanna do that" . This is why Dean Kaman once said at a kickoff several years ago, "I don't care who builds the machine, as long as you show up with a competitive team". And, he specifically mentioned complaints about teams sending their challenge out to be professionally built.

Another important aspect of FIRST is what the members of the team get out of it.
1. Everyone gets a chance to exercise genius; no individual is a genius, but all individuals can exercise genius. Oppenhiemer of Los Alamos fame was never a genius prior to that project and was never a genius again after that famous challenge in WW2. Genius is something that happens to individuals when placed in an extraordinary situation with real challenges and a short amount of time and they are forced with all of their heart and mind to focus on a challenge. If you arise to the occasion, you have exercised your genius. For that reason, YOU MAY HAVE GOT MORE OUT OF YOUR EXPERIENCE than another team that were not involved in the design and build of the robot. On some teams, the students primarily spend their time on the animation, community involvement, fund raising, newsletters, website development, chairman’s award and a myriad of other activities and they are left with a rich experience, although not one involved with the design and build of the robot. And in most cases they exercised genius in developing solutions to those challenges that they took on.
2. Everyone gets to improve their teamwork and collaboration skills; another factor in famous exercises of genius, is collaboration. Without which, you would not see the amazing results that you see in almost all FIRST teams. "If one can set a thousand to flight, than two can set 10,000 to flight". This paraphrased saying implies there is an order of magnitude with each person you add to a collaboration." and three can set a hundred thousand to flight".
3. Everyone gets to improve their social skills; most technical people are thought of as being "geeky". This is usually something that results from spending a disproportionate amount of time alone with technical challenges and ignoring the interpersonal challenges of which if you fail at, your not going to enjoy life to it’s fullest. The one skill I personally value the most, is the degree to which a technical person can explain their technology to a non-technical audience. Richard P. Feynman, acknowledged as the “Master of clear explanations”, is probably one of the most famous technical individuals with that skill, as well as Issac Asimov. The value of your knowledge is only to the extent that you can sell it to other people. As a result, people who have a sound technical background as well as exceptional people skills have the marketplace totally at their mercy. People gravitate to individuals or groups that express themselves in away that almost everyone can comprehend. Your idea is only as valuable as your ability to convince other individuals of its value and thereby recruit your team members, and, this takes social skills.
4. Everyone is presented with an opportunity to grow in the most intellectually and socially fertile environment available today; and FIRST will probably be heralded as the inflection point of the next industrial revolution. And this will happen because FIRST provides a High gain/Low risk opportunity for people to open up and share with a group of like minded people and it has a growing support from Corporate America.
5. Everyone gets to receive approval for, and the satisfaction of, being involved in a program that bears good fruit; I can think of no other program that has produced the results and has grown at a steady rate as FIRST the Competition. However, this satisfaction is proportional to your reason for, and your level of commitment to, being involved in this program.
6. Everyone gets to experience “Gracious Professionalism’; Grace can be defined as “showing undeserved favor”, or you could say it is “doing something good for somebody that did not do something good for you first”. That is a dichotomy (something with seemingly contradictory qualities) to the nature of our present (what did you do for me) society. Professionalism is defined as “the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person”. Put those two together and you got some mighty powerful stuff that you cannot get with money, but you can get with love.

The robot and how it gets built, is only one aspect of what FIRST is all about.

I leave you with this: in my third year, we finished roughly 16th out of approximately 170 teams at Epcot and although we did not win it all, we went away with the thrill of having experienced our best effort. As I sat in the closing ceremonies, I could not have been any more satisfied if I had gone up to receive the recognition given the national champion. I had experienced a level of collaboration and teamwork that I hope I can experience at least once a year.

"If you don't go, it will never have happened"

Last edited by junkyarddawg : 23-02-2002 at 11:26.
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