Why are YOU involved in FIRST?

[melitami]

My junior year of high school, our physics teacher got a bunch of info sent to him about FIRST since that was the first year the regional was in Richmond(my hometown). He asked his classes if we wanted to do it. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, but we decided we wanted to do it. Not only that, we decided we wanted to go to both Regionals and Nationals. So we had a meeting afterschool to learn about what the competition was exactly. It was me, one other girl, and a bunch of guys at the meeting. The boys were goofing off and not getting anything done, so I went up to the board, and said, "Guys, I stayed afterschool today to get stuff done. Let's get something done." I led the discussion and we figured out what we had, what we needed, and where we could get some things (like funding). The next day, 2 of the senior guys decided that I should be the student leader of the team (we had decided we wanted to be a student led team, and we still are). So I became the head of the team for the next two years. And we pulled it off somehow. I wouldn't trade what I've learned and what memories I have from FIRST for anything in the world. I'm currently going through withdrawal since I've been at college, but I get to help out next year