a club for college FIRST-a-holics

Competition College Teams
1

Was talking to a few college FIRSTers about having something like a club, or organization, for all the college FIRST participates, and I am wondering how many will be interested in joining.

It would be something easy to do, just a website, and a e-mail list… The goal is to get all the college FIRSTers to know who else are doing FIRST while attend school after they graduated high school, and share the experience.

We could do something like “top advices to keep you from burning out”, and “how to handle a lab report and two papers while designing a 2 speed transmission”, and share stories about the whole experience. Or how about a list of AIM/yahoo/icq/msn screen names? Maybe even an index of which college the students are at? We can even arrange meetings or getting dinner together at competitions.

The most important part of this is to make people understand “we are not alone out there… there are a lot of people like me struggling through midterms while attending robotics competition with teams”. Then the second most important part of this is building up a network of college FIRSTers, and maybe do something more than just helping teams with your experience.

Then of course, we are doing this for fun. The less work it take, the happier we all are.

Let me know if anyone is interested.

For all you high school students out there… don’t forget, you will graduate one day, and you might find the urge to find yourself a FIRST team at your college, maybe even the passion to start up a new team just because there isn’t one around the school you are going to, despite how many classes you are taking and how many minor degrees you are working for.

I am absolutely positively not kidding, getting addicted to FIRST is worse than anything I’ve ever seen, including breathing air or getting sleep or sanity. Some might even give up some of those addiction just so they can satisfy their need for FIRST, while getting new addictions to things like caffine and donuts.

So… I guess I am just suggesting that us addicts should come together so:

  1. More students can be like us, and
  2. have fun sharing the experience
2

I think that’s a great idea! It’s infringing on Buzz territory a little, but from what I’ve heard, their site hasn’t been up much lately.

I completely agree, FIRST is addicting. And it gets very frustrating when you’re in college and you can’t find a way to do FIRST. Just ask my roommates from last year.:smiley:

I’m definitely in! Just for info purposes, I’m a sophomore biomedical engineering major at Drexel, who’s at home in Richmond, VA on co-op, and has been at almost every build session for her high school’s team this season;)

3

I tried to get UCLA group to mentor but all of the engineering groups already planned out year-long schedules and from purely being mangement it would have been hard to start a team from scratch. But I would still love to be more involoved in first (i’m helping out at the SCRFF scrimmage next week) so I think this idea to keep us all in touch is a great idea.

4

As a future grad, I for one am all for it! I am so stoked that the college I hope to get into helps sponsor ther own FIRST team.

HOKIE HOKIE HY! TECH! TECH! VPI!!!

P.S At nationals I supported 2 teams, mine with our ornage jumpsuits and HOKIES! with my orange VT hat, I was so shocked VT had their own team there!

5

Or how about a list of AIM/yahoo/icq/msn screen names? Maybe even an index of which college the students are at? We can even arrange meetings or getting dinner together at competitions.

Aye, good idea Ken.

Wetzel

Time for Pump
6

*Originally posted by MisterX *
**As a future grad, I for one am all for it! I am so stoked that the college I hope to get into helps sponsor ther own FIRST team.

HOKIE HOKIE HY! TECH! TECH! VPI!!!

P.S At nationals I supported 2 teams, mine with our ornage jumpsuits and HOKIES! with my orange VT hat, I was so shocked VT had their own team there! **

Yup, we’re here! We’ve been competing since 2000 when I was one of the High School students on a rookie team with no funding and 5 college kids running the team! In 2001 we were regional and division finalists.

We hope to see you next year if I’m there

Ken, good idea, I’ll be part of it…

7

As a person in college I am totally stoked for this idea. It would be awesome if we all got together via internet, count me in! It could also help future grads be able to come together to start a team at their college if it doesn’t already have one:)

8

once again, ken… you rock!

great idea. i’m SO in!

heh… i’m a bit happy… our bot works…

9

Hey I’m in I’ll represent the Northeast.

10

U of A WildCat here all for it :wink:

11

hey i am totally in for this, great idea. it would be great to get to know other college FIRSTers around the country on different teams. count me in. it would be awesome to see a website go up or at least a chat/discussion and AIM/YAHOO list go up w. names and schools of people!

-Raj-

12

Ken…
Of course I’m in…
:smiley:

13

I will be in college next year and was wondering what i will do since i want to continue with FIRST in some way. so this is a good idea. it is even better since i will be over 2 hours away from team 902’s home base. GO ROBOHAWKS!!!
this would be an excellent idea. hope it works out. oh and GO GVSU!!!

14

im too addicted to not be in this.:]

15

Any club with Ken in it is cool :slight_smile:

16

The Ubergeeks have started a FIRST webring that might be a good starting point for the FIRST club. You can sign-up and grab the code at http://firstubergeeks.com/webring/ I am hoping everyone with a FIRST website will join this new webring.

17

I’d love to join. I’ll pass this on the the rest of the team here at Tech. We have a group of about 15 FIRSTers still active from high school to college (and growing…). We have quite a few of the high schools students from the teams we mentor moving up and joining us next year.

18

Great to hear everyone so enthusiastic about it!

Lee offered his webspace to us already, so all we need is a web master cough sunny cough…

Also, I would like to hear some suggestions from people about what else you want to do in a College FIRST-a-holic club, as long as it takes very little work. All the ones I suggested only take a website to do, and they are still fun.

19

There certainly aren’t enough resources FIRST-wise for college students! Count me in. :smiley:

20

I am down for it. Any club with Ken has to be cool.