Why are YOU involved in FIRST?

[Andrew]

Whenever we start our season, I try to ask the people involved what they hope to get out of the program. I'm actually now evolving a survey so as to make the answers more uniform and to clarify the roles for the various constituencies. Answers have ranged from the purely selfish to the purely selfless.

Within the constraints of our facilities, skill levels, and available work hours, we try to accommodate as many people's desires as possible. This has helped us ensure that we have "satisfied customers" (which includes the engineers, teacher, external sponsors, high school administrations, ...).

I would be curious to hear from the broader community, why you are involved with FIRST.


Since I started this thread, I'll go first...

I am an engineer with too many years of education and not enough years of experience. My primary reasons for being involved are:
1. I like to design systems from the ground up.
2. I enjoy passing on skills which I have accumulated over many years to the next generation.
3. Participating in a Regional competition or Nationals is the most fun you can have without breaking the law.
4. I don't have enough stress in my life.

Andrew
Team 356

[Kristina]

This is my first year on the robotics team and during all those stressful times, I too ask myself why I joined I guess its a little thing called supply and demand...actually there was a demand so I supplied. My team was in desperate need of organizational skills and the head of the robotics team (one of my friends) and the physics teacher knew my uncanny/OCD management skills so they recruited me and I bypassed the application process where 160 people tried out for 30 spots...that was kinda cool. A lot of my friends were also on the team and I thought I would finally find a class where I could learn to tolerate science (not a big science person at all). I also gave my dad that glimmer of hope that I would follow in his footsteps and become an engineer instead of wanting to become a lawyer. I've had so much fun with my team and definately got out more than I what I expected when I chose to join.

[Stephanie]

I joined because I wanted to learn. I love to build, and see things that I've worked on work. I guess that might fall under the title of "selfish reason", but what I have gotten out of it is much more rewarding.
I *have* learned, and I finally figured out where I could use all the Law of Sines and Cosines stuff, I learned how to solder, and wire a robot. I have experienced extreme exhaustion, man, all those times i was tired before, that was nothing. I have also grown as a person. All those times when everyone was tired, and hungry, and grumpy from 12 hours of building, we all had to realize that we were all in the same boat, and none of us had a right to criticize another. I learned about many of the people on my team, and have come to know them as my brothers and sisters, and they are now some of my closest friends. I have also learned that you can be competitive without being malicious, aka "gracious professionalism". I find it incredible to see the cooperation in the pits, and the way everyone collaborated to get the job done, and to see that there is a place where kids are recognized for their brilliance and aptitudes. My experience as a rookie on a second year team has been absolutely priceless, and has quite possibly changed the course of my life.
If FIRST is having this same or similar impact on everyone else, I can see where Dean Kamen is trying to take the world.

Stephanie
~who realizes that that was a longish-sortof-off-topic post...

[Melancholy]

i have quite an interesting story for how i got involved in FIRST. i had wanted to be a teacher for quite a while, so i was signed up to take a course in 11th grade called child care. i later found out that it was an all girls class and it involved a lot of girly things, which i'm just not into. i went to my guidance counselor to see what else i could take. my choices were cooking, sewing, and audio electronics. well, i found out that even though i was the only girl in the class, i was really good at electonics, and my teacher eventually asked me to join the robotics team, which i didn't even know existed. my schedule for this year includes hi-tech electronics, principles of engineering, and ap computer science. i fell in love with robots. now, i'm gonna be an engineer when i grow up. well, i'll never grow up, but you know what i mean...

[Anthony S.]

In november of my 10th grade year, I strolled in a meeting and got caught up in a cart building discussion (even though we're still using the same one from 1st year), after that I became totally interested, then I started losing interest and thought about quiting, then kick-off came, after that, my life has never been the same. I thought that 6 weeks was just the funnest I had had all year, then I got to competition, I had a total blast, then after nationals when it was all over, I looked forward to my 11th grade year. My 11th grade year wasn't as fun as the year before, our robot didn't work as well, no team spirit, I put in too many hours and didn't like the outcome, but when I got to competition, I still felt good, and I just enjoy being around all of the people who are crazy about FIRST just like me. I learned a whole bunch and enjoyed being around people on the team. I also have no life and FIRST is just the best thing I could do. I consider it a blessing to be involved in FIRST and I don't know how I could survive high school without it. I have one more year with it before I go to college, I'm going enjoy every minute of it . I LOVE FIRST!!!!!!

[D.Stephenson]

Well... Keyspan, gave money to the Deer Park team and my Dad mentered them for three years. (he works for keyspan)Then i got to go with him to the comptitions.... I loved every minute of the compitition. Then when i found out West Islip was starting up a team i joined and my Dad helped my team.....i guess i wanted to see what my Dad had been working on with the Deer Park team. i really glad that my dad work with deer park or else i don't think i would have know about FIRST ... i love my robotics team and everything about First

[melitami]

My junior year of high school, our physics teacher got a bunch of info sent to him about FIRST since that was the first year the regional was in Richmond(my hometown). He asked his classes if we wanted to do it. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, but we decided we wanted to do it. Not only that, we decided we wanted to go to both Regionals and Nationals. So we had a meeting afterschool to learn about what the competition was exactly. It was me, one other girl, and a bunch of guys at the meeting. The boys were goofing off and not getting anything done, so I went up to the board, and said, "Guys, I stayed afterschool today to get stuff done. Let's get something done." I led the discussion and we figured out what we had, what we needed, and where we could get some things (like funding). The next day, 2 of the senior guys decided that I should be the student leader of the team (we had decided we wanted to be a student led team, and we still are). So I became the head of the team for the next two years. And we pulled it off somehow. I wouldn't trade what I've learned and what memories I have from FIRST for anything in the world. I'm currently going through withdrawal since I've been at college, but I get to help out next year

[Jnadke]

My friend (who happened to be on the team last year) told me about it in our programming class. I thought this year, what the heck, I'll give it a try. I did and absolutely loved it. I only wish I knew about it sooner...

[Firewolf]

this reporter "ed me on this for the local paper, and i was kinda surprised at how smart it made me sound... but it goes something like this...
"It's a lot of fun ... like the idea of getting a challenge, thinking about it and then having the ability to make it."
and i think that covers all the grounds ness.

[Hubicki]

One of my friends recruited me for my Sophomore year. At the time, I only joined for the cool robot aspect. It seemed like something cool and a few of my friends decided to join too. Of course, someone in charge decided to stick me onto Animation, Chairmans', Woodie Flowers, amd every minor award available. I wasn't too happy with this because I had become THE 'goto' guy for everything that noone wanted to do. It was only after my first year that I actually read to Chairmans' criteria and was 'enlightened' to what FIRST was all about. And at the Maryland State Fair Tournment, I was the lead strategist, and I decided to do that ever since. Now, I'm on the team to make sure that it succeeds in every possible way that it can. Of course, it doesn't hurt your college resume either. But i wouldn't give up on FIRST for the world now.
~Hubicki~

[Denman]

originally i joined because i had to do an activity "outside school "(school policy, they called it enrichment, and every wednesday afternoon is off for it)
but now i am staying for most of the reasons mentioned above.

[Dan-o]

I originally joined FIRST when I was first introduced to the program when mentors and students from team 365 (MOE) put on a demonstration at my high school.... some 20 miles away from their home base. The team was looking for prospective members for their 2003 season. I had already known that I wanted to go into robotics, so I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about the field, and play with futuristic machines in a national competition.

I soon found out that FIRST was about so much more than building a machine. After going to many meetings, the build season started, and I was bombarded with slogans like gracious professionalism, of which i though I understood. The build season came to an end and our bot was shipped away in a crate. This almost made me cry. I had grown so attached to this thing that I had poured my heart and soul into for 6 short weeks. I have never felt such a sense of accomplishment in my life as the day that bot finally worked. This feeling of pride emitted itself from my being weeks after the competition season ended.

I'm overlapping here... Annapolis regional in 2003 was not my first competition experience, as I had traveled to several off-season competitions with the 2002 bot, however the scale of this event was unimaginable to me. Almost 70 teams from all over the place were assembled with the projects that they too had poured their heart and soul into. After a few matches pass during the practice day, I see a bot start letting out its magic smoke on the field. One of my team's mentors immediately sent all but one person from my pit crew over to see if there was anything we could do to help. I was thinking... "wait a second... isn't this a competition?.... don't we do better if they do worse?" I followed the pit crew over and saw the burnt robot being worked on by people from at least 4 different teams. Finally, I was introduced to the true meaning of Gracious Professionalism. It didn't matter if they were going to eventually be competing against our team. All that mattered was for them to get the same experience and fun out of the competition that we had. This is why I will probably be involved in FIRST until the day I die.

With all that said (sorry for being so long winded), I am in FIRST because it is one of the very few competitions in which teams are willing to help their opponents, to the extent that they may be sacrificing a win, or even a championship.



P.S. I do like to mentor high school students as well, but that's not what originally grabbed my attention.

[- Raven -]

We have to choose an activity to study which isn't on the standard school curriculum as part of our school course. So I heard word that the school had a Robotics team, and set out to find out more. Liked what I heard n' saw when I got there, so I jumped straight in and joined.

[Ken Loyd]

Eight years ago, a "wild man" from General Motors came to our high school with the idea of creating a robotics club. After listening to this man for about 4 minutes, I was hooked. Mike Rush, Arizona Woody Flowers Award Winner, thank you!

Ken

[Eria4044]

A friend of mine, who's a year older than me, was on the school's robotics team his freshman year. My freshman year (this year), he persuaded me into joining.