Breaking the Geek-FIRST Bias

[Mike Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Phil 33

And at some point you realize this: FIRST is not for everyone. You have to pick your battles, and aim for small victories. Don't try to win everyone over. Talk to your friends, talk to indivdual people one on one. Anyone who expresses some interest, talk to them. That's how you get people to join FIRST. Giving presentations to the whole school is great (and our team has done it) but like I said, small victories. You can give your presentation, but most people walk away without thinking about it. But if two people come up you you after the presentation you gave to 800 people, those are the people you've got to aim for.

oh my poor misunderstood friend, here lies your problem, FIRST is for everyone, its for the "athlete"(human player) its for the "computer nerd"(autodesk inventor, 3dstudiomax, and robot programing, webpage design) its for the (and this is just my opinion) really really scary way to peppy people (no offense) ( Public relations, Cheering) its for the "Englishmajorextrodinare"'s(award submissions), is for those that are handy with tools(that whole building robots thing) there are hundereds of jobs for anyone who wants to do anything on a team
I think FIRST teams have evolved from just a group of kids building a robot, they now have to be thier own business and in most business their are jobs for everyone
i try to stress this every year to everyone who joins our team, THERE IS A JOB FOR YOU you just have to find it

by the way when someone calles me a dork or geek, i tell them to look up dork and geek in the dictionary, and that i would rather be called nerd