Is FIRST a robot building CONTEST?

[Daniel Brim]

First of all, before I begin, I think FIRST is what you make of it (I think I borrowed this from a spotlight). The below is my interpretation of FIRST, and is by no means the only interpretation of FIRST.

Personally, I do not believe that FIRST is simply a robot building contest. As it has been stated before, the robot is merely a "by-product" of the competition. We build a robot because FIRST tells us to. A robot is just a way of giving us inspiration, and I believe that everyone can be just as inspired with another object. Say the goal was to build a car. Would it be harder? Of course. Would FIRST need more engineer involvement? Yeah. Would teams need more money in order to compete? Most likely. Would everybody be just as inspired? You betcha.

FIRST, by definition, is a competition, as was stated before. However, it is not a normal competition in that it is every team for themselves. FIRST is so much more than that. Just look at some anecdotes from previous seasons, such as six hour robot (everybody descending on a team with no robot's pit and build a robot in six hours). This is were the whole cooperatition idea comes in.

In addition, there are so many things to do in FIRST besides actually building a robot. That is another reason why I think it is impossible to define FIRST as simply a robot building contest. There are chairman's award people, animation people, PR people, Inventor people, NEMs, and many other positions that I'm sure I have forgotten.

Here is sort of a story from our team proving that you do not need to be working on the robot to make a difference in a FIRST team. One member of our team (you know him as DCA_Fan or George) has not really worked on our robot at all in his four years as a Beach Cities Robotics team member. This does not mean he is not working; in fact it is the exact opposite. In his work with our Chairman's entry, our website, as well as the website for SCRRF, he has made just as much as an impact as any other team member, if not more. It was largely because of him that we won Chairman's in the Southern California regional last year.

Me personally, I only touched the robot twice this year. One day I attached the drawer slides on our arm, and the other I tried my hand at driving. The rest of the season I have been working with Inventor to try to expand BCR's horizons as a "robotics" team. I like to think that I'm making a difference not only on our team, but in Dean's scheme to change the world.

In conclusion, I think that the fact that the Chairman's award even exists is enough to prove that FIRST isn't just about robots. If this was solely a contest, who would care about changing the community? Making a positive impact in the community and inspiring is truly what FIRST is about to me.

My 2 cents are in the pot, and now I eagerly await Dave's story.

-Daniel