How meeting dean changed my view of FIRST

[vivek16]

Hello, I am writing a paper for my composition class and I thought some of you might appreciate it. It is still a very rough draft and I am only a sophomore in high school so i apologize if it is not too eloquent.

Being the leader of a FIRST robotics team requires an enormous amount of sacrifices and work. It also has perks that make it worthwhile. One such perk is being able to represent your team during conferences and conventions. The people that you encounter during them are revolutionizing science and technology in their respective fields and changing the world doing so.
One such conference I went to was the Design of Medical Devices Conference. Our team was invited because Dean Kamen, the founder of FIRST, was speaking and it was a great chance to learn about the applications of engineering and how it was changing the world.
Mr. Kasinkas (the Mentor that was going with me) picked me up on a Thursday morning. The drive was long and when we got there we were early. They had breakfast food on a table and the variety of donuts caught my eye. I planned on wolfing some down after things settled down a little bit. Mr. Kasinkas introduced me to Mark Lawrence (the Minnesota FIRST senior mentor). We then talked a while about the future of the robotics team and I wandered off to look at the exhibits (after helping myself to a cornucopia of glazed Krispy Kreme donuts of course). After about half an hour or so, Mr. Lawrence came over to me and told me that there was someone that he wanted me to meet. Figuring that it probably another team mentor I followed him unenthusiastically. As we walked into the refreshment area I saw Dean Kamen. Much to my surprise, Mr. Lawrence marched me up to Dean and introduced us (In FIRST Dean is almost equivalent to god and you can probably imagine how I was jumping with joy). The first thing I noticed was that he was wearing an all denim outfit with hiking boots (Dean is known for his denim shirts and is rarely seen without some form of denim on). As we talked I could only think about how amazing it was that I was talking to Dean Kamen. The conversation was brief, maybe no longer than a couple of minutes, and nothing too important but I doubt that I will ever forget it.
The speakers were decent but all throughout the presentations I was anxious to see Dean’s presentation. It was well worth the wait. He described his inventing history starting with his first projects in which he worked with a group of scientists to make a portable version of the dialysis machine that patients could keep in their homes, the IBOT (a wheelchair that can balance on two wheels and do many tasks such as climb stairs and curbs), and his work in making a machine that would purify water completely and would be available for poor villages in third world countries. He then talked about FIRST. He talked about it with such passion that I got goose bumps listening to it. He explained his dream of a world where science and technology were celebrated more than professional sports and TV stars. He ranted about the idea of Gracious Professionalism where teams helped each other in times of need instead of selfishly increasing their chances of winning. He gave his spiel about how students worked side by side with engineers to build a robot in six weeks and simulated an engineering project where there is never enough time, money, or labor and compromises have to be made. He described how FIRST had created a microcosm of the real world.
At the end, I had learned a great deal about FIRST and its ideals. I had better reasons to spend the majority of my time for the six-week build season in it. I already had these ideas taught to me from the online robotics forum and the competitions but never before had someone talked about them with such passion and conviction. Dean made me realize how FIRST was changing the world. He also made me realize how I was changing the world with it.


thanks, vivek