Woodie Flowers in his Younger Days

[mzitz2k]

Hi everyone,

I'm an alum of Team 302 and have nearly completed my first year here at MIT (wish me luck on my exams - I'll need it!). I came upon a link today that I thought all of you FIRSTers would enjoy:

http://web.mit.edu/smcs/inaugural/mi...y2005-220k.asx

And, here is the web site that I got the video from (see the May 5th section):
http://web.mit.edu/inauguration/highlights.html

This video actually has a clip of Woodie Flowers in his younger days!

Some background information on the video: I'm not sure if you all know, but Woodie helped begin an incredible class here at MIT called 2.70 (nowadays it's called 2.007). The 2 stands for Mechanical Engineering if you're interested. You'll see in this clip that this class is very similar to FIRST. In fact, 2.70 has been around for over 30 years!

So, this is a bit of a history lesson on how FIRST was created too. I thought I would share this with you all. I have had the true honor of meeting with Woodie recently and I must say that this world is truly lucky to have such an awesome man.

Keep dreaming big,
Matt Zitzmann

[Alex Cormier]

sweet video, thanks for sharing. man i would take that class if i could.

[ZZII 527]

I can't wait for 2.007. I'll probably be taking it next year although I was debating waiting a year so I could say I took 2.007 in 2007. FIRST alums should dominate the 2.007 competition!

[katiyeh07]

my science teacher (Mr.Blanchette) from 7th and 8th grade was in a science video with Woodie Flowers. we were watching it in class and I was like hey I know that guy! he was impressed, everyone in my class just looked at me funny...

[Daniel Brim]

My dad went to MIT in the late 60s/early 70s and met Woodie. He had a game going where students could bring in old mechanical devices such as peach pitters and other weird things. He would name the device. As far as I heard, he never missed. My dad also was guest lectured by Woodie (he got his degree in architecture). When I asked Woodie to sign my shirt, my dad asked me to say hi!

[RudimentaryPeni]

woodie in the 60's and 70's, that is so tight.

[Bryan D]

This looks like one of THE coolest classes I've ever seen/heard of, not to mention Woodie is a part of it

[ZZII 527]

The 2.007 contest is being webcast tonight and tomorrow night (May 12 and 13):

http://pergatory.mit.edu/2.007/contest/public.htm

[Yan Wang]

Yay! Only 14 more months before I can take this course

So how's MIT FIRST?

[ZZII 527]

Originally Posted by Yan Wang

Yay! Only 14 more months before I can take this course

So how's MIT FIRST?

MIT FIRST is taking a finals break at the moment.

We're hopefully picking up another high school next year, James D. O'Bryant, so we will have a school from the North (Chelsea), East (Boston), South (Westwood), and West (Cambridge) of MIT. Plans for exactly what regionals we are attending have not been layed out yet.

I have some big long-term ideas that I am looking into, specifically getting a field built on campus and hosting an off-season event combined with an MIT robotics/technology expo of some sort. All of this is still just a crazy idea and I need to run it by a million people before I'll even know if it's possible, but I really think that MIT should be a FIRST hub and I think there are enough important people here who would support the idea. I'm going to email some people before I leave for the summer and then we'll put together a serious proposal for all this over the summer to present in the fall. I'd like to see it happen before the 2007 FIRST season. We'll see.

Must survive finals week first!

EDIT: So much for that break. Team 97 will hopefully be making an appearance at 2.007 tonight (at very least, I will be there), and we may even be on the webcast briefly. I did a lot of really-late-notice emailing, so I don't know just how many people are going to show...but we'll see.

[Cyberguy34000]

Hahaha, Woodie with a fro! That's just great

The games that you can see brief glimpes of in the video look very challenging. I think I know where the inspiration for VEX came from...

[Ian Curtis]

That program was the inspiration for FIRST. Although since vex descends from FIRST it is the inspiration for both.

[tiffany34990]

this is really great! it's great to see the idea of FIRST and where it came from

it was fun to watch for sure

thanks for sharing