NASA Grant and Chairmans

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by N7UJJ

Team 842 has submitted a Chairman's essay both last year and this year even though, as Hall of Famers, we were not eligible for the award. We felt the process of creating the essay is so valuable to the team and especially for those who are involved in the composition of the document, that we have continued submitting.

In all our years, we have yet to have our robot win a competition. It has not diminished one bit the value of our participation in preparing for the competitions. Its the process, not the trophy (or lack of) that is valuable. Same for the Chairman's submission.

Allan-

Thank you, thank you, thank you for saying this. Your message is absolutely spot-on, and a wonderful reminder about the real value of the FIRST program. As build season draws to a close, it is entirely too easy to think that the focus is all about the robot and the competition. It is too easy to forget that the real goal is re-focusing of the cultural values of the country and creating a more technically-literate society. It is too easy to forget what is really important.

When I talk with students on my and many other teams, I bluntly put it this way: "as your potential future employer, I don't give a crap how many little toy trophies you picked up at some sports competition. When NASA is trying to figure out if we are going to hire you, we want to know if you are technically talented. We want to know if you can solve problems and can innovate. But most importantly we need to know that you know how to think, how to work with a group, and how to lead. Now tell we what experiences with your team have given you those skills..."

The answer to that question is never "well, we won second place at the Ham'N'Cheese Regional Robotics Competition." Instead, it is always a discussion about the interactions between the students and the mentors, and the lessons transferred. It is not about the robot they created, but rather with the process that they went through to create the robot.

Students that understand the criticality of that distinction will have employers fighting over them. The ones that don't get it will be making sandwiches for the ones that do.

-dave




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