Reasons For Being Interested in Engineering, Programming, and what not

[Robert Voorhis]

Hi, As a friendly chat i wish to hear everybody else's reason for being in robotics and or how you became interested in engineering.

[Audrey Chu]

I was dragged to the first team meeting in September my freshman year by my best friend at the time and a week later, found myself at Fall Classic. Needless to say, after experiencing the heat of a competition first hand, I was in love. Now, as a junior on the team, although I still look forward to competition, robotics has become far more than just that. I get to do the coolest thing in the world, and I have been exposed to so many opportunities because of my dedication. Most importantly, I've been inspired to continue with robotics and engineering, not just through high school, but into college and the rest of my life.

[Frenchie461]

A then sophomore threatened bodily harm if I didn't join the team, so I did. I worked out really well for me: I got addicted.

[DonRotolo]

I learned that it was who I was, as early as 6th Grade. There never was any other real career choice. Electrical was the default since my brother had become an EE; in retrospect Mechanical is what I became. Same thing, really...

As for Robotics, there was a meeting after work mid-December, the local high school was starting a robot team and needed some help. The student leader turned out to be our next-door neighbor. A week into build season and I was hooked. 8 years ago.

[Karibou]

I spent the first three months of my first season going to team meetings and listening to people lecture us about concepts that we might use during build season. I didn't go to a shop session until one of the mentors said that they really wanted some girls to come to the shop sometimes, and I got hooked into doing CAD. And then I learned how to use the lathe...long story short, I ditched my plans to become a music major and became an engineering student.

[Tommy F.]

The gifted program at my middle school offered a robotics class, along with others that also had engineering behind them. The class was mainly building a VEX bot at first by instructions, and then doing whatever we wanted with the kit. I was one of the only ones that actually programmed my robot, not using the default configurations. I liked what I did there.

But I guess what really influenced me joining the team was my friend. His dad is a mentor for the team. So I was basically dragged into robotics, and now I'm addicted. I plan on pursuing a career in software engineering, mainly because of my school's robotics team.

[treffk]

Family was involved in FIRST at another somewhat area school and got me hooked. When I heard my school was starting a team I immediately asked to join what was a "College Physics class" team. I was one of 2 freshman on the junior/senior team. I feel in love and this is now my 7th year involved with FRC and 6th with FLL. I'm not a engineering, programming or any sort of science student but FIRST made such a huge impact on my life that I am working towards a degree to get a job with FIRST so I can inspire kids to pursue these areas.

[Ian Curtis]

For as long as I can remember there was a magnet on my parents' fridge that said "Engineers: Superior by Design."

I certainly had a lot of parental influences towards engineering too. I got a MINDSTORMS kit when they came out (I think my Dad liked playing with it more than me though), and was on an FLL team the first year I was eligible. Since the local FRC team was desperate for mentors (and my Dad would only do it if I got to come along), I got started FRC in 7th grade.

I got into airplanes because I grew up next to an airport, and there's a museum that let me work on the planes. Now I'm a semester and a half away from working full time in aerodynamics on airplanes that are 500 times bigger.

Robots aren't the only kind of engineering, I think this kind of gets lost on FIRST kids sometimes.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

Robots aren't the only kind of engineering, I think this kind of gets lost on FIRST kids sometimes.

Quoted for truth.

I started out hanging around the Team 82 shop when my dad became a mentor. I'd relax, maybe pick up nuts and washers from the floor, stuff like that. Hung around a bit more as Team 330 (the number changed the next year, though the team didn't) continued to play; joined the team for the 2003 season. My dad is an engineer for a large aerospace company, FYI.

In college, I joined the school's Aero Design team. More engineering of a different sort. Now I'm doing my senior design project with the school's team for the NASA Lunabotics competition. Funny how robotics follows me... or does it? It's a completely different ball game. Think an FRC-scale FLL robot, and a desert environment, and you're just about right. Good news? One task other than maneuvering. Bad news? It's a difficult task, and doing it can make the environment worse.

[jwfoss]

I have always had an interest in all things mechanical due to my dad's love of cars and always having something completely taken apart out in the garage.

I joined frc176 Aces High during my freshman year of high school after my cad teacher mentioned the team to me. The fact that I didn't know that the team existed before that is still interesting to me.

Before joining Aces I played travel soccer, and was on the JV Lacrosse team. It's safe to say that robotics had a large impact on my high school education and a massive change in my social life.

Aces pushed my interest in mechanical engineering to the next level and lead to me Clarkson University for college. Towards the end of my education and even moreso now with frc2168 The Aluminum Falconsm, I've realized that although I have the Engineering degree, being a mentor and teaching is something so fulfilling that I will likely end up persuing teaching as a profession in the next 5-10 years.

[JamesCH95]

In 1997 (at the ripe old age of 10) I drove 95's first robot, Isaac, at a demo. I was hooked then and there.

[Boldheart]

Like some others, my middle school had a robotics program for those willing to come before and after school. Thats how i became interested. Then, in my freshman year of high school, I visited the University of South Carolina(for some reason, I think to tour the college), and met Donn Griffith who had a ton of FRC stuff laying around his office. We talked about it awhile, and that's how I got to be a member of team 2815, Los Pollos Locos. Since then, i've been studying to be an engineer ever since. I'm glad to be coming back again this year, it's going to be a fun last season.

[Robert Voorhis]

Since I started this topic I guess I have to Post my reason too. So I became intrested in engineering because of my father, he taught me(in a rather unorthadox manner) how to build almost anything. Ever since then I have been building almost everything that caught my attention or experiments, and then one day I joined robotics and it was like i found heaven.