FRC Blogged- Safety, Congressional Testimony, and How to Get Hired by Elon Musk

[Steven Donow]

Link to blog

Blog Date:
Friday, January 17, 2014 - 11:21
Safety, Safety, Safety

With the build season in full swing, it’s a great time to remind everyone of the importance of staying safe. Nothing you are doing is worth getting hurt for! Safety should be a regular topic with your team. Talk about it, practice it, and help others stay safe as well.

Speaking about helping others stay safe, I’m very happy to announce the winners of the 2014 Safety Animation Award, judged by our Safety Alliance Partner, Underwriter’s Laboratories.

Team 3324, The Metrobots, from Columbus, Ohio, USA, took 1st Place. Team 624, CRyptonite, from Katy, Texas, USA, was second, and 3966, L&N STEMpunks, from Knoxville, Tennessee, USA placed third. The Metrobots video will be shown at FRC events this season. Congratulations to our winners!

You can see the winning videos, and find the updated 2014 Safety Manual, here: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...deo-and-manual

Congressional Testimony

Last week, Dean and four FRC team members testified in front of congress on the importance of STEM and the value of FIRST. The team members testifying were:

Ellana Crew, from Team 1111, Power Hawks

Brian Morris, from Team 612, Chantilly Robotics

Daniel Nette, from Team 1418, Vae Victis, and

Vishnu Rachakonda, from Team 53, Area 53

Congratulations to the team members on representing FIRST so well!

You can see the testimony and find more information here: http://science.house.gov/hearing/sub...-students-stem

How to Get Hired by Elon Musk

OK, maybe we can’t guarantee you will get hired by Elon Musk, but he was interviewed on CNN recently and had this to say about the qualities he looks for in folks he hires:

ZAKARIA (Interviewer): Do you find when you hire people, you are looking for people who have that mindset who are willing to try stuff?

MUSK: Yeah. Yeah. What we look for at SpaceX and Tesla is evidence of exceptional ability.

ZAKARIA: Defined how? By grades? By …

MUSK: Right. So, grades is a fairly obvious way, but very often it's not the person with the good grades, but there are other things in their background that they've done that are exceptional. Like they created something when they were a kid that was some cool technology or maybe they won FIRST robotics competition or won a state science competition.

How great is that? See the full transcription of the interview here: http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/20...d-zakaria-gps/

Also, check out the clip with Bono* talking about creativity and age. This one might be more interesting to mentors.

Frank

*So, Bono is with this band called ‘U2’. You might want to Google them. While you’re at it, you may want to Google ‘Joshua Tree’. This recording came out the year I graduated from college, which I realize means it’s probably older than most folks reading this blog, but listening to it will make you hip, I’ve been told. (Hipness not guaranteed)

[Foster]

Originally Posted by Frank

So, Bono is with this band called ‘U2’. You might want to Google them. While you’re at it, you may want to Google ‘Joshua Tree’. This recording came out the year I graduated from college, which I realize means it’s probably older than most folks reading this blog, but listening to it will make you hip, I’ve been told. (Hipness not guaranteed)

Not to sure about this time reference, but I'm thinking Frank may be a young'en after all. In '87, I was building robots with my 7 year old son holding my brand new 4th child ;-) But Frank, you are still "hip" in my book.

[wilsonmw04]

+1 for the U2 reference

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

+1 for the U2 reference

+2. Frank keeps getting cooler.

[geomapguy]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

+2. Frank keeps getting cooler.

+3 Agreed

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by geomapguy

+3 Agreed

+14 because U2 knows how to count in Spanish

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by BigJ

+14 because U2 knows how to count in Spanish

I see what you did there.

[Whippet]

Hooray for U2 references! Since that's what we listen to in our shop, does that mean that Frank likes us the best?

[Christopher149]

Strangely enough, "City of Blinding Lights" was playing when I saw the blog post. And I'm 19.

The other stuff in the blog post is cool too.