Raising Curiosity

[Jon Stratis]

I would rather say that NASA (and other tech companies) lay the groundwork for us.

Think about it... we land a man on the Moon, or a rover on Mars, and the country gets excited. A new iPhone comes out, and the world gets excited. For most of them, their excitement likely doesn't have anything to do with STEM. They sit back, say "cool", marvel at what we can accomplish, then get back to their daily grind.

Previously, a student might see us land the rover and think "that's so complicated, there's no way I could ever be a part of something like that", and then get back to their algebra homework, never seeing the connection between what they're learning right now and what we just accomplished.

With FIRST and other STEM related programs like it, we have a way to show those kids the path towards being the next "Mohawk Guy". It's possible for a student to learn about the rover landing, and then work along side professional engineers building a robot and programming it for autonomous mode. Watching the rover land is inspirational regardless of what else happens. Being a part of FIRST is inspirational regardless of what else happens. It's our job to follow up on what NASA accomplished and continue to keep kids interested long enough to do it professionally. Putting the two together... that's like peanut butter and jelly - it combines to be better than either could be apart.

I would pose another question - how can teams use the Curiosity landing (along with all the media attention, awe students feel, etc) to help increase their recruitment efforts? Can this awesome event help us reach even more students?