How did you findout about/became involved with in FIRST?

[TedG]

In the late 90’s, I had heard about the robotics team at our town’s high school, but didn’t know much about what they did, but it sounded cool..and interesting.

When my son was a high school freshman in 2009, he wanted to join the team, and because the mentors/advisors encouraged any parental help they could get… I hung around to help. It was so cool when we finally got into build season, and then finally seeing a competition. That is when I learned what FIRST was all about.

The following year (2010-2011 season) the advisors (who had been running the team for a very long time) wanted to get out of running the team, were looking (pressuring) for some of us “helping parents” to take over running the team. So after much consideration, I and another parent took over running the team for the next 3 years while our sons were in high school. What a great experience for the students, our sons and the mentors as well! It was a lot of work, but very rewarding to see the students have fun and grow as people.

2013 was my last year as an advisor for the team and being a full-time mentor, as it took up way too much of my time for three years. I still dropped by during build-season a bunch of times this year, to lend a hand to the students and to help work on the robot. It’s a hard thing to give up completely.

My son was on the drive team for three years, and was the team co-captain for his Junior and Senior years (and on his own merit, not because of me). He is now in college majoring in Electrical Engineering, and tries to make it to the competitions when he can to offer moral support to the drive team and help out in the pits.

We plan on being there this Saturday in Lewiston ME, to support BERT at the Pine Tree District.