Skills USA

[lpickett]

I use to work as a judge at the VICA Skills Competition Championship at Kansas City, Missouri through work. It is exciting to see all the different avenues of skills. We had some of our engineers work with the robotics area as judges. It would be good have some presence of FIRST on the floor. I haven't been for a few years, but I do know they have one day open to the public to come see the competitions and there are tons of booths in the hallways. I am impressed by the work of the students, but not as impressed when I am working with our robotics community. It is amazing to be around high school students that are helpful and not competitive like you get in the sports arena.

[Zyik]

I did CA Skills USA for computer matinence and repair. I got 3rd place at state. I would have competed again this year, but the school decided to cut the funding to us. It's an... interesting experience, but I don't think many of the kids in Skills would like FIRST.

[Burmeister #279]

Originally Posted by Zyik

I did CA Skills USA for computer matinence and repair. I got 3rd place at state. I would have competed again this year, but the school decided to cut the funding to us. It's an... interesting experience, but I don't think many of the kids in Skills would like FIRST.

I definitely agree with that. At the Ohio competition people were wayyy to serious about not talking lol. I suppose the competition is about personal skills for some and team* for others, and not about working together for learning. Its basically [and crudely put] showing off in my opinion.

*the teams don't accurately represent workplace teams because you *generally* don't start off knowing eachother and eachother's skills before you get the problem.



/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\
Caution, accuracy not included =)

[edit]
the state officers thing they do at the state level was kinda way over my head. my school is like yeah we're there and we compete but we have no idea what anybody else does there with the officers/representatives stuffs >.<

[thefro526]

I do SkillsUSA. It's pretty cool, I got a silver metal in Robotics and Automation technology last year without ever using the program before. It's definitely a good program but it's more of a solo competition where you don't make very many bonds outside of your team or school. I've noticed that it's more of and intra-school/county rivalry competition than anything.

Oh well, I go to States on the 9th. It'd be cool to get gold.

[Burmeister #279]

Originally Posted by thefro526

I do SkillsUSA. It's pretty cool, I got a silver metal in Robotics and Automation technology last year without ever using the program before. It's definitely a good program but it's more of a solo competition where you don't make very many bonds outside of your team or school. I've noticed that it's more of and intra-school/county rivalry competition than anything.

Oh well, I go to States on the 9th. It'd be cool to get gold.

Woot! Scorebot robot arms for the win! be sure you know how to do the flowcharts

oh, another note, you've finally got me thinking: its just like another sport where schools/counties/regions/states compete against each other.

[dooey100]

Although we don't do it at our school in Canada we something that sounds pretty similar (OK it sounds identical ) called Skills Canada. (anyone see the resemblance?) It also has 100 or so different competitions, including a robotics competiton a little similar to FIRST but with a bit smaller bots and field, 1 vs. 1, no KOP at all, etc. that a nearby school entered. This years game was to collect tennis balls and play connect 4 with them. (there is also CAD and animation and electronics and etc.)