help with FIRST paper

[petek]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

Besides the testimonials that Sarah mentioned (Rich Kressly put this together) go to the FIRST site and look at the evaluation summary which has some statistics, although they are old. FIRST is finishing a major evaluation of the programs, but I don't think the numbers are available yet for the public.

FIRST has now posted the report from Brandeis University on the FRC. From the Executive Summary:

In 2002, FIRST contracted with Brandeis University to conduct an evaluation of the FIRST Robotics Competition. The goal of the evaluation was to begin to address three basic questions:
- What is the impact of the FIRST Robotics Competition on program participants in terms of academic and career trajectories?
- What can we learn about the implementation of FIRST in schools, both in terms of better understanding program impact and identifying “best practices”?
- What kinds of impact has participation in FIRST had on participating schools and partnering organizations?

This is a veritable goldmine of information and attributable third-party data which shows that, however you measure it, FIRST is very successful. I've been working with this report for a talk I'll be giving later this month at MARM 2005 and found it to be a great resource for statistics and participant feedback nuggets. (Yes, I plan to post the talk as a whitepaper once it's done.)