Is there really inspiration in teams?

[Philip W.]

This thread was created to focus on and continue a small tangent from the thread Why do teams voluntarily do FIRST without adult technical mentors?

No matter what the proportion between student-built and engineer-built a robot is, or student-managed and mentor-managed a team is, it would seem to us that every student in FIRST is inspired, which is the bottomline. Or are they? This is something I would like to clarify. Are students really being inspired to take careers in science and technology? I know the degree of inspiration on my team, but I don't know the degree of inspiration on yours.

For Woburn Robotics, despite our student-built success in the past years, inspiration is at a low. Our past two years of graduates, I believe only 2 of 9 (member population was at low tide, tides are changing now) are taking a course in science, technology, engineering or math. In light of that fact, our alumni continue to stay connected with FIRST. Talk to a volunteer at a Canadian regional event, I'll say there's about a 30% chance (trying not to exaggerate) that you've met a 188 alumnus.

I will refrain from any boasting of our alumni and get back on topic. The question is...

What is the degree of inspiration on your team? What sort of post-secondary schools are your alumni attending? Are you a student-built or engineer-built team? Are you a student-managed or mentor-managed team (i.e. who is the leadership)?

To determine the degree of inspiration, "X of Y are looking into a career in science and technology," as I have done will do. Please refrain from posting long success stories on a single person, we have too many of them to cram into this single thread. A good exception to this would be a success story of a student who spent over 300 hours during the build season, the same number of hours during the rest of the year, and earned a nice full (or nearly full) scholarship at a nice university, the ideal FIRST offspring that'll become more successful than Dean Kamen himself (they're not watching me are they?).

To investigate quality in addition to quantity, I ask you the universities your alumni attend. This is the best measure of quality I can think of to determine what sort of engineers (and other professions) your team is "producing". No matter what the answer is to this question, it doesn't affect that these inspired students have fulfilled FIRST's goal of inspiration.

Another measure of quality I would like to inquire on is devotion, whether you are a student/mentor-managed team (managing is simply leadership in this case, does not include team coordinator duties) despite being slightly off the topic of "inspiration". IMHO, students that can lead themselves to develop a successful organisation like a FIRST team are the leaders of tomorrow. Maybe you can't say that your students are as devoted as a team where students run themselves, but please try to mention how devoted your students are (as a whole, again, I ask for no long single person success stories). The amount you work during the off-season says a lot about devotion as well.

I hope to see that these upcoming posts answer yes to the question, "Is there really inspiration in teams?" I trust that we can keep this clean.

IMPORTANT edit/addition:

I failed to realize what also matters when trying to measure the degree of inspiration a FIRST team will give to their students. A very important factor is what would happen to your students if there was no FIRST to affect their high school career. What determines the degree of inspiration isn't simply the result of FIRST, but the difference between the result with FIRST and the result without FIRST. Please consider this when giving your thoughts and replies.