When did FIRST click to you?

[tjf]

At what point did FIRST stop being "that thing you do" and become something else? When did FIRST become "More Than Robots" to you? Was it the people, the first event, your first victory, your first loss? Was it the day you became a mentor, an alumni, or something else?

[Monochron]

First trip to Nationals, back in Atlanta, without a doubt. My first year I only really participated (ie. did stuff only when told), even after going to two competitions. Being at the Georgia dome, seeing the crazy level that other teams play at, and (more importantly) seeing just how many people like me were in love with this competition immediately changed my level of involvement.

[tr6scott]

Coming from FLL, and being a controls engineer, I was kind of depressed my first year in FRC, with my son as a freshman, as to how much programming didn't mean to the game. In FLL you had 2:30 of Auto, in FRC you got 15 seconds, almost seemed why bother.

Logomotion week 1 at Kettering.

We had an line following ubertube program, that used an ultrasonic to stop at a distance from the wall, dropped and backed up. When we tested it a Kettering the diamond plate of the wall was giving us all of these erroneous readings. New to Labview, I did not know of all of the commands to filter, avg. etc. so we were on the practice field testing, and I finally gave up and said, screw it, put in a timer. This was after talking to the team the last 3 weeks about how a timer was not the solution, we needed to sense the stop position. So we tested the time, made adjustments, found about 9 seconds was right, and went to play our first match.

We hung the UBERTUBE, the programmers were jumping around like crazy, I screamed so loud and long, I almost passed out.

I then got to watch the Killer Bees, do two tube ubertubes auto, Wow.

Killer Bees, made us their first pick, and we took home our first blue banner the next day.

But that first ubertube was it, and the son's and programmers reaction.

Son just started his Junior year in college, I still participate with the team. Like Dean says, we never leave. . .

[Koko Ed]

2002 Buckeye regional while sitting in the stands absorbing the organized chaos. I spied 68 coming out of the pits with their robot on the back end of their miniature truck cart and I thought to myself "This is the coolest thing I have ever done." and the rest is history.

[SenorZ]

We're still an after school "academic club" on my campus. I realized that FRC was more than just a thing to do when I considered quitting as advisor/mentor a while back. I couldn't do it. Isn't that the sign of addiction?

[5113sean]

I made friends on my team and realized that all the stress was worth it. That's also when our team spirit really kicked off.

[BaileyJoseph166]

For me it was a combination of occurrences. The first step for it "clicking" was when I went to Worlds for the first time in 2015. As I walked around, met new people, and saw teams and their amazing robots I had always aspired to be as good as, I just felt marveled at the majesty of the program. That year I went to conferences and watched the best of the best, and when I came home it all started to come to me, how my team could change things and what I could do to help the team fulfill the vision we had.

The second real actualization of the "clicking" of sorts is not when I was elected captain in the spring of 2015, not when I sat down with peers and mentors to plan training, but the first time I stood in front of a group of parents, freshmen, veterans, and mentors and led my first whole team meeting. That is when for me, I realized the impact and magnitude that the FIRST program can have on a school, a group of teenagers, and on me as an individual.

Maybe I will have another epiphany later on in life about FIRST...

[MooreteP]

1998, Rutgers, I cried.

Three of my favorite things: Engineering, Sports, and Education together under one roof.

It hit me.

My special purpose

[dodar]

The "click" came to me in 3 moments:

1. When I was shown video from the previous season(2006) and getting to see how teams competed.

2. After having spent all of build season working on our robot and then going to UCF and the Florida Regional and getting my first taste of competition, all the other teams and their robots, and the competition feel in the stands.

3. Walking to the Georgia Dome and just seeing the hordes of teams from all over walking to the competition. Then actually walking into the stadium and seeing just the sheer size of it all, 5 FRC fields + the FTC/FLL fields and the thousands upon thousands of people; this especially dawned on me when we went to watch Einstein and filled up the top and bottom halfway around the stadium. The magnitude of the cheering before and during the match and then the absolute silence as it finished and every single person was waiting for the results. It was also so inspiring to go to the GWCC and see all the HoF booths and to see the history of some of the teams from around the Country(at the time). But then you enter the Hall and have 400 FRC robot pits from all over the World and you can walk up to each one of them and look at the wide diversity of designs and actually talk about them to the pits members and learn about how and why they did what they did.

[WinterPoet]

My "click" was almost immediate. Somewhere around the third or so meeting I realized I was looking forward to them more than anything else, and by the time I arrived at my first competition I was already head-over-heels. It all happened really quickly, but I tend to obsess, so it at least makes sense.

[Liam Fay]

FIRST actually clicked for me before I joined the team. At my school you have to complete a community service requirement. So I volunteered at the San Diego regional for most of them, figuring that if this was something my friends and brother did that it might be fun.

From the moment I stepped into the stadium, I knew that this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my high school.

[GeeTwo]

Hmm, no real click. More like this:

Originally Posted by Ollivander (Deathly Hallows, chapter 24), slightly misquoted

An initial attraction, and then a mutual quest for experience, the mentor learning from the team, the team from the mentor.

Edit:As I thought about this, I realized that I disagree with the post that "the magic is all in the mentors". The magic is there in the members of the team, and it is the mentor's job to inspire, guide, and help them develop their magic. If Ollivander were to describe me, it'd be something like:

Seventy five inches, reasonably compliant, oceanographic acoustician with a core of physics.

Edit2: The analogy breaks down: When Harry claimed that the golden flames was a wand-summoned spell, no one believed him.

[Paul3161]

FIRST took a while to click to me. Back in 2014, I heard about my school having a team, and I tried to be apart of it, but I was scared due to my lack of experience, that I would do more harm than good. At this time in my life, I was going through a lot with friends,family, depression, and not knowing what to do with my life.

I ended up not attending a majority of the meetings (I went to around 3 meetings in the off season, and 1 meeting right after build season). Later on that year, my friend told me that our team qualified for a spot at worlds. My parents pushed me to travel with them to st.Louis however, I didn't really want to go. I thought it would be weird since I did nothing the entire year, and now I'm just joining the team for the trip. I actually almost dropped out last minute, but thankfully my parents did not let me resign.

While on the road to st.Louis I had no idea what to expect, since I haven't even attended a regional, let alone travel to world championship. The moment I walked into the Edward Jones stadium, and saw the other teams pits and what they have been able to acomplish, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Walking around the pits was one of the most trilling experiences in my life. Ever since that day I promised myself that I will do whatever it takes to become an engineer.

After my experience at worlds, I fully joined the team (I joined halfway into week one of build 2015, since I was still scared to put myself out there. Eventually I had to force myself to go meetings to get rid of this fear). I knew that if I want to help out with the robotics team that I would need to try my hardest. I started off by doing any work anyone gave me, and I did it to the best of my ability. Finally I gained trust with the mentors on my team, and they decided to put me on the drive team due to the amount of hard work I put in that season. (Kinda funny since I joined the team a bit late.)

Ever since my experience at worlds in 2014, I was able to do the following, due to FIRST:
• Learn how to get rid of the fear that was holding me back from my true potential.
• Build a robot for the 2015 challenge.
• Become team captain for Team 3161.
• Learn How to CAD in Solid works.
• Organise team events to raise money, and promote our team.
• Design and build the majority of our 2016 robot.
• Grow strong relationships with amazing people, mentors and other teams.
• Become a Deans list semi finalist.

FIRST has become on of the most important things in my life. So many people have guided me along this path, and for them I am truly grateful. I am personally so proud of what I have become, and I now look forward to inspiring other people to take part in FIRST.

Paulius Pace
Team 3161

"Be proud of our achievements, but don't stop there. We're heading towards the future, not the past."- Chris Hadfield

[Type]

It's weird, Im honestly not sure when first clicked. It wasn't right away, it was after the reveal video for 2016, I just remember slowly I put in more and more time, working on more stuff and dedicating more time. I would take charge and figure out what needed done. It lead to an addiction, when I wasn't working on the robot, that's what I wanted to do. Towards the end of the season, I was getting sick from the lack of sleep, long nights and I could barely breath. At this point I stepped up as build leader although it wasn't officially my job yet, but I knew the most about our robot. It didn't help me trying to get stuff done and I couldn't even talk to my teammates, I was averaging about a cough drop every 20 minutes to make it through the event. I grew more attached throughout the season, at moments too attached, but long story short, the click was between kick off and end build date, but I couldn't tell you the exact moment.

[chapman1]

Not one real moment for me. Too many to remember. Your posed question immediately bought up for me, though, a line from one of my favorite movies. "It's the vibe."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gls09kO-8DE