The Reasons we Continue to be in FIRST

[popnbrown]

This is my first year as an official mentor to a team (FRC Team 4096, Ctrl-Z), and I got a very different feeling when I went to competition this year. Usually, when I was on a team, I got a feeling of "I'm so pumped, FIRST is so awesome, can't wait to see our team do awesome". This year, I felt "Wow! I'm so proud of my students." and I felt that every single day waking up and going to sleep, standing in the stands and walking around.

So with that in mind, I wanted to start a thread (hopefully there isn't one already, sorry for making it again if there is), that showcases what the reasons are that you continue to be in FIRST. I know we can see this in many of the posts throughout CD, so to make it interesting I want to try and encourage posts to be relatively short and to the point. As minimum background info and straight to the point. I know there are multiple reasons, so feel free to post more than one but try to make it only ONE reason per post. I'm very curious to see what FIRST means to parents, mentors and students and why they're still in FIRST.

Note: If you can't keep it short, that's fine. I'd like to hear it anyways!! And I know it's tough to make it short but I want you to try and put that effort in.

So here's mine as of last night:

Paula, a 9th grader on Ctrl-Z tweeted, after coming back from competition:

FIRST has already changed my life, and @CtrlZ4096 too, a change for the better and I don't know where I would be without you guys #omgrobots