Guess who signed my t-shirt?

[Marygrace]

Today team 294 (Beach Cities Robotics) along with team 22 (Chatsworth) attended this conference at the Pasadena Arts Center with Dean Kamen. It was an awesome experience. It was set up like a TV show, there were cameras eveywhere, a stage set up, and cool leather seats for the audience.

Anyway, FIRST invited our two teams, a long with Beach Bots who unfortuantely couldn't make it, we missed u guys!, to be interviewed with Dean Kamen. It was a blast. But different then I thought it would be.

When we all first heard about this we thought that it was going to be about robotics, and thats all. It turned to a lot more. First, we were brought up, showed off our bots, answered some questions, made the audience laugh. (By the way, Dean, if your reading this, Tungsten Inert Gas ) Then we got off the stage, the host had kind of like a debate with Dean. He started out as describing his invention, the water purifier, then wen to asking Dean about his intentions with a ll of his inventions.

This is when Dean kind of told a story about his father. He was complaing one time when he was little, and his dad said something a long the lines of,

"If you have a small problem, dont complain, if you have a bigger problem , dont complain. Get up and do something about it,"

In the end it turned into Dean explaining how he is trying to improve the world in general. Get clean water to the ones that need it, a long with electricity. Dean did an awesome job with defending his points. Which i am sure doesn't surprise any of you. I didn't really do justice explaining how this whole thing went.

In short, like i said before, this experience was awesome. I wish all FIRSTers could have been there to see Dean in action once again.

I have a new found respect for u Dean, ur one of a kind.

[Roland]

So who signed your t-shirt?

[Marygrace]

LOL, that one guy...wuts his name...oh yeah, Dean Kamen signed my t-shirt.

<----note the orange sunglasses, thanx to Sandrag, woohoo!

[Redhead Jokes]

Dean interviewed by Hockenberry of NBC at a Design Conference, Pasadena Art Center
Dateline reporter doing the interview

It's part of this event

1

2

Team 22 and 294 kids onstage


then 3 members of each team remain onstage to answer questions and display robot

[J Flex 188]

looks awesome you guys.. the opportunity to spread first to even more people =D ..

looking forward to meeting team 22 soon!

[Ali Ahmed]

Yeah I was there to today and it was cool meeting Dean Kamen again. We are sorry about our guys that went up because they were freshmen and don't know anything, but it was cool none the less and we are forward to coming to Canada.

[Ali Ahmed]

Also while we were getting ready and stuff, Dean's Segway "slipped" or something and went off the stage and some of the kids. Thats something new, "Segways Gone Wild".

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally Posted by ali_rockon22

we are forward to coming to Canada.

*envy* Wish we were going to Canadian regional.

[Jay H 237]

Originally Posted by J Flex 188

looks awesome you guys.. the opportunity to spread first to even more people =D ..

looking forward to meeting team 22 soon!

You summed it up the best. Hopefully Dean will do more interviews with teams like this and promote FIRST. What better way to reach a mass audience other than taking out a superbowl commercial. *thinks to self- "If I can get my team to do enough fundraising we can take out our own commercial to promote FIRST"*
Now I also know why Dean wasn't at UTC. I got word yesterday at UTC that Deam might make an appearance but it's kinda hard to be on both sides of the continent at once. lol. To bad congress banned cloning!

[JakeGallagher]

So Dean signed your shirt...<i>I</i> signed Woodie's shirt!