Why are you in Robotics?

[Royalpride1070]

I join robotics because I really enjoy it,I want to be an engineer in the future, and it's just a really Great experience. there's nothing that beats being in robots, and i love it because you're never bored and you're always learning to do new things.

[Michelle Celio]

To the creator of this thread,

The following threads may be useful to you.

Why are YOU involved in FIRST? and Girls, Why did you join FIRST???

Hope you find what you're looking for.

[Allison K]

Because FIRST is a black hole of course. Once you're in, you just can't leave.

More seriously, I'm mentor robotics because I am studying to be a teacher and I think that FIRST teaches many skills and values that are extremely important to carry over into the classroom. I know, the FIRST documentation says the FIRST takes knowledge taught in the classroom and carries it over into a real-world experience, but I think it's a little confused. I think that FIRST teaches students how to learn, and exposes them to a new level of thinking which can be used in the classroom to better education in general. One example - How many classrooms do you know of that are capable of catering to the number of different learning styles that a FIRST robotics team is able to accommodate.

~Allison

PS - I voted for "It is my future" because I think that FIRST robotics (or at least the values of FIRST robotics) should be everyone's future. Of course, FRC isn't for everyone, but that's what FVC and FLL are for.

[BuddyB309]

Kind of funny story really,

I originally joined robotics thinking I was going to become go to school for mechanical engineering and this was a good idea to find out about it. After a two weeks into the season I decided that it was really boring to me, and that I did NOT want to be a mechanical engineer. (I don't mean to offend anyone mechanical engineering is not for me).

I'm no quitter so I decided to take the Public Relations route and make promotional videos for the team. I found out I love the camera. In my second year of robotics I picked up animation and Love it even more than the video camera. Animation is what I want to do, if it wasn't for robotics, I probably would be going to school for mechanical engineering and just now realizing that I don't want to be a mechanical engineer and not knowing which direction to take.

Thank you FIRST

[EHaskins]

Where else can a high school student get to use 3Ds, Inventor, and play with expensive robots?

[Ben Piecuch]

I'll be the first non-student mentor to chime in here. As a professional engineer, I don't get the chance to flex my engineering brain all that much. Rarely do we (engineers) design from a blank sheet of paper, build the hardware ourselves, or test the design iterations we come up, all in a 6 week period. To be able to teach a talented group of students, and then to work with them through the robot design/development/build is a very rewarding experience. FIRST allows me to teach, interact, play, and compete with a wide range of students, mentors, and engineers. If that doesn't bring a huge smile to your face, I'm not sure what will...

BEN

[Peter Matteson]

I completely agree with what Ben said. Additionally I think that working with FIRST makes me a better engineer. It forces me to look not only at what I think is a good design, but how to make it, what parts are most likely to fail, how do I assemble it, and how do I service it. These items can frequently get lost along the way of making a "perfect" or idealized design. FIRST keeps me grounded in reality.

Pete