Collegiate FIRST competition

[prettycolors91]

While I agree that FIRST College should have a strong emphasis on the end product, looking at it from a business perspective is also useful.

From my observations working with MTU's Robotics Enterprise, it is not enough to simply produce a great robot. This robot building process requires a large support staff of business people, accountants, and managers. In addition to this, in the real world, you would have to SELL your product to people. Corporate responsibility and philanthropy can be huge factors in this. Learning where your community needs the most help, and providing volunteers or services can be a huge asset to the overall growth of your business.

This is where marketing and corporate pride (team spirit anybody?) come into play. A company that is proud of what they do and transparent in their actions will be much more appealing to the consumer. FRC is about inspiring students to take the leap into a STEM field, but FIRST College should be about having something useful to put on a resume. Being able to present a well laid out team structure with management and business plans, extensive budgets, examples of community involvement, AND a great product will get you far.

This is why I think it is important to integrate some of FIRST's core values and take them to the next level in this new program. Losing sight of everything else FRC stands for is setting an example for a younger generation. How can we participate in a program that FRC students will look at and say "well, the college kids don't have to do any of this feel good crap. I just want to build robots. I don't want to do community service. Clearly it's not important if they just drop it once we hit the next level"

Instead of dropping things, let's step it up and take FIRST to a whole new level!