Is FIRST a robot building CONTEST?

[Yan Wang]

Originally Posted by Steve W

FIRST is an egg. What is he talking about you ask. Everyone looks at an egg and knows that it is an egg. BUT what is an egg? It consists of 3 separate items of which if you took 1 away it would no longer be an egg. Each one is a totally different part, each one is needed, each one brings the egg to be what it is. I would suggest that the robot competition is the shell of the egg. The reason is that once the shell is removed you find the life force of FIRST. The inspiration, teamwork, life experiences and much more. Is FIRST a robot building contest? Is an egg the shell?

FIRST is like Shrek which is like an ogre which is like an onion, which has many layers, I think he means to say

Personally, I think it is a robot building contest, but the contest is not between different teams, it's between team members and themselves. The six weeks is the most important and longest part of FIRST. The challenge to engineer a robot with a large group of people is a contest to see whether a team can act like team - to learn, to teach, to listen, and to do. The competition celebrates the build period, but it's not the real contest. By the time you've finished the 6 weeks, you have a darn good knowledge of whether you've succeeded at participating in that contest. You don't need a regional event to tell you that.