FIRST learned lessons

[Amanda Morrison]

1. Being a mentor only requires an open mind and fifty thousand times more responsibility.

2. Yelling and screaming gets you nowhere in life. A smile and a good sense of humor take you places.
3. All those little jobs that you would never want to do? That's what I get stuck with...

4. There are two things that FIRST always forgets to put inside the kit - more time and more money. There's never enough of either during the build season.

5. No matter how bad the situation seems, there's always a kid on your team that will keep trying to make it better.

6. The sacrifices that you make for your team are the ones that students will remember for a lifetime.

7. The best jokes are inside jokes with the kids on your team.

8. A FIRST friend is a forever friend.

9. The challenge of FIRST is not building a winning robot, it's that student, sitting in the corner, dying to create that robot - and you putting the wrench in his or her hands.

10. Never underestimate the power of the Chicken Dance.