This year's "game" is a job, not a game

[SousVide]

Originally Posted by jman4747

Ask someone if they want world champion FRC robot or a BMW M3...

We are here in huge part because STEM related things are under appreciated. Building that appreciation means nothing if it isn't based on what it really takes to do what we do. Most of our work is not to be on the field in front of the crowd. That's the goal, to do our best out there. What we do to get there is what we want people to appreciate. Would we say we are promoting stem if 10,000 spectators came to a regional because the games were so amazing to watch but participation never rose again?

Has everyone seen Dr. Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture", if not, I highly recommend it. You can see it here:
https://youtu.be/j7zzQpvoYcQ

It's a inspirational message about how people learn - and it was actually his last lecture - he meant to leave that as his legacy to his children. Anyways, in it, he talks about head-fake. In which, he teaches someone an important lesson that they might not know to learn (or care to) by showing them something else that they might have an interest in instead.

Anyways, I see the FIRST world as two different types of people - and no, this isn't a joke about the binary counting system. Type A is the people who already come in with some interest or appreciation for metal work, hand tools, electrical wiring, programming, or just plain old STEM. These people are either standing at the thresholding waiting to be invited in or have already boldly stride through. Our work as mentors is to groom them and "mentor" them - keep them interested, reveal to them the rest of the wonder, etc. There are also adults who are in this category and they are ready to jump in enthusiastically to help, to pitch in with support, etc.

But those aren't necessarily the people I'm talking about. I am talking about the Type B people. They have no interest in this stuff - nobody has shone them and they might not even care. Here's the head-fake, I show them a sports game - that he/she can relate to. We can talk about how exciting these things can get. How much sports there is and look at all of these young people, parents, and mentors all very much engaged, etc... While they are enjoying all of this and nodding, I take them to the workshop and the pit where everybody are furiously working towards a common goal - show them all of the GP and coopertition that's happening... Head faked again... because all of that exciting stuff that we just shared and enjoyed out of the field happens because of all of this other stuff that happens here - now we all have an understanding. "Bud, I need your help", etc. ,etc... Sometimes people can learn to appreciate something that they haven't before if you can show them some common ground and a powerful shared vision - eventhough they had completely no interest in it in the first place.

We are not just trying to reach Type A folks, we need to bring in Type B folks too... In my case, I have to, because most of the town are Type B folks - absolutely no interest. But hey, if I can show them a basketball-like game, or soccer-like game, I just might be able to head-fake them into it.

It's sooo much harder when they think what's going on out on the field is a snore.

(and again, I am completely fine with whatever engineering type challenges that are put out by our fine GDC folks at FIRST. The Type A folks we have will eat it up either way. It's the Type B folks that will always make it a challenge; and some years it's just harder.)