FIRST Philosophy 101

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

My intention of quoting Dean Karmen's remarks from a few years back was to put things into perspective. Dean was speaking to mentors when he said "when you start to feel like you are involved in a robot building contest then you are in serious trouble!"

I know that I think and see things differently from most people. Maybe I have a weird view of life or engineering or FIRST?

Many of us engineering mentors are in "serious trouble". We're bad. We engineer things and help create robots that do incredible things. We take students along with us on a ride of invention, creation, frustration, caffine-intakation, fabrication, and inspiration.

This thing we are in is called the "FIRST Robotics Competition". We are here to compete. We participate by means of building a robot. This IS a robot building contest.

What happens within this robot competition is the magical stuff. Students open their eyes. Adults regain their engineering passion. Heroes are made. Friendships are born and fostered throughout many years.

People who go through a season of FIRST have a "bond". They each invented a robot within a crazy short time frame... and then they competed with it. They all participated in this "robot building contest", and a bunch of inspiration shot up as a result.

Is there really an argument here?

Andy B.