Can anyone (or combinations of anyones) explain the history of the FIRST symbol and the colors? I have heard lots of bits over the past 4 years, but never the whole story…
i heard that the colors goes with the american’s flag color…
Ya I always wanted to know what the symbol meant and stuff, of couse FIRST but what does the circle and triangle and square mean?
If i remember correctly, i believe it has something to do with the work of archimedes in respect to the volumes of two dimensional shapes (circle, triangle, square) rotated around an axis.
This is the example i found…
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/ArchimedesMath/RotationVolume.gif
Take a square with side a, a circle k, a parabola and the triangle with hypontnouse d. A complete rotation of these curves around the x-axis will produce a cylinder, a semi-sphere, a paraboloid and a cone that have volume ratios as 6:4:3:2.
Dean explained this to me at the UTC regional in 99, and from what i remember him saying, he was so fascinated by the triange-circle-square trick that he wanted to design the logo after this.
http://www.usfirst.org/images/fr_logo.gif
Any other ideas?
Tom
tiff and i were discussing this in the pit today, and we wanted to know why a hexagon wasn’t in the symbol…
Originally posted by Tom Schindler
If i remember correctly, i believe it has something to do with the work of archimedes in respect to the volumes of two dimensional shapes (circle, triangle, square) rotated around an axis.
I seem to remember him saying something like that when he was asked about it at the New England Regional in 2001.
That’s a really cool explanation Tom, but I wonder why there is no parabola in the FIRST symbol?
too hard to draw? 
Probably simplicity-- triangles, circles and squares are all really simple – throwing a parabola in adds complexity to the logo… who knows!
I have heard from many people that the colors come from the US flag, as FIRST was USFIRST before going international.
I have never heard the Archimedes explanation for the shapes. Instead, I was told that the circle, square, and triangle symbolize the most simple elements that exist, and they are chained to represent everything that can be built from the same building blocks.
That’s what I had thought, the Circle, Triangle, and Square are the basic shapes, the building blocks of all other shapes.
lol–yep yep–that was a discussion with us today-- we were going towards the symbolism of each shape like circle meaning eternal–but i know i’m probably wrong–just over looking thing cause of how my teachers make us read books and find symbolism in everything-shapes, colors etc…