Hello everyone,
Throwaway account, perhaps for obvious reasons.
I am very deeply involved in FRC. However, I have found that others have found it strange that I am so deeply immersed. This has affected me to a certain extent, and from time to time I find myself questioning my motivation to continue. However, I truly love the work.
The reason I am posting is to ask other mentors and students is why they remain so involved (say, perhaps 25+ hours a week) and remain motivated to continue.
I’ll respond.
Speaking for myself, I remember back when I was still a student on the team I’ve now been helping mentor for 10 years, and I just remember turning to my friend in the stands during the award ceremony and saying something like, “this is the most fun I’ve ever had.” I felt like it was one of those moments where you feel like you’re in the right place, at the right time, doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, and I’ve been chasing that ever since.
I feel like I’ve still had glimpses of it here and there in FIRST or with my team since, and the time seems to just fly during build season or at competitions. I feel even more rewarded now though when I see others experience that same feeling and knowing I’m helping make that happen for them. Devoting all this time and energy to FIRST or our individual teams obviously isn’t monetarily rewarding or get you much acclaim or recognition in the outside world, but I certainly feel it is meaningful and important work, and perhaps that’s why it’s so fulfilling.
Can I motivate you and should I motivate you?
Different strokes for different folks.
I’ve been doing this more than 20 years, with a gap here or there (just about half my life), and I was never a student in FLL/FTC/FRC.
I have sunk over $100k of my personal money into FRC alone.
I commented last night, as a matter of fact, that it’s deeply amazing that since nearly 1994 so incredibly few events in FRC have been outright cancelled once resources were commited.
This shows the level of fanatical commitment so many people have to accomplish these feats.
However: life is about balance. So while all of this still remains deeply important to me…each of us needs and has a responsibility to find and manage that balance to achieve our potentials to our satisfaction.
So if something is demotivating you: you gotta find that deeply personal perspective as to why and then define and maintain those boundaries to accomplish: what you can, what you want, what you hope for, what you need and what others need.
My observation is that FIRST can consume singular devotees like a single corn chip and it will not make the slightest dent in the hunger represented by FIRST full opportunity. So don’t bite off or have bitten off more than you are prepared to loose.
Keep in mind I showed up at an event as CSA and at registration they informed me it has been 20+ years. Well I suppose if you think about it like I became a very lightly involved ‘godparent’ to thousands of kids when I just got out of high school you can see what personally motivated me. Still I can’t do that for everyone: at best I can be inspirational beyond a certain point as the limits of my resources are reached.
If 75,000 mentors touch 1,000 lives each you touch 75,000,000 lives or roughly the number of children in the U.S. alone. Imagine what could be if 300,000, 600,000, or 900,000 mentors put themselves to the cause. Recent UNICEF estimates there are 1.9 billion children on Earth at 1,000 per mentor, adjusting for some population growth over time, 2-3 million mentors at 1,000 lives touched each.
Citing source for that U.S. child population size:
I’ve been routinely pulling 40+ hours a week doing robotics this season. Heck I literally just got home from what is now an 18 hour day and my crazy self is going in again tomorrow for probably another 8-10 easy.
What Boltman said, except for #2. Because I’m also a mentor for our FTC team, so I have that craziness too.
I would add nothing beats the satisfaction of watching a Senior patiently explain why we don’t do sub system tests with the motors at full speed right away. Or having a first year student watch a simple facing operation on the lathe, guiding him through doing the next 6 then seeing him get into his ride home and tell his dad he got to run the lathe and it was so awesome! Finally, there is the mom who can’t thank you enough for helping run a program which allows her son, a very non athletic kid, learn about being on a team and getting exposure to competition.
–
Mike
FIRST is my favorite “waste” of time.
It combines three of the things that I love: Engineering, Sports, and Education.
My family and friends know that I am in lock down from January through April.
Of all of the avocations that I could pursue and devote my “free” time to, I believe that Robotics ticks the most boxes.
Design, Game Theory, Dancing, and an environment that is, for the most part, apolitical.
These students are going to pay for our pensions and will have to face many challenges in the upcoming decades. I want them to be well-prepared and optimistic.
I write this as I sit at Waterbury Day 2 after getting home at 10:30 last night, losing an hour to DST and getting on a cold school bus before the sun came up.
This is my Tribe.
I’ve always enjoyed building things and making things, ever since I started welding st the age of 6. When I joined the team, the first year I was on it we went to Worlds for the second time. It really inspired me to try hard the next season to make it back. I put hundreds of hours into the robot, getting there early, staying late, improving my TIG welding so I could weld the robot. After all that work, we ended the season with 2 new blue banners (only have ever had 1 before that), one being for winning the Tesla field as an alliance captain. Being on the Einsteins floor has inspired me this season to keep going, put in an insane amount of hours just to get back there and show the world my team.
Everything listed above plus:
If you could figure out exactly how human motivation really works, you could own the world.
FRC is a once in a lifetime opportunity, as a student, I want to take advantage of everything im able to learn by being part of the program, thats why I spend every living second doing FRC :yikes:
In week 1 I got a good reminder of why I keep coming back to volunteer.
I switched careers to teach because it was of greater value to society than what I previously did. I went back to school to teach engineering and shop (rather than my initial certification in English literature, French language, and music) because it was (in my opinion) higher impact; once again of greater value. I chose to focus on FRC over the gazillion other opportunities for students that I have tried, or which pass through my inbox daily, because it is the greater value. In short, I’ve distilled my focus down to what I think is the best use of my time, if I want to have a positive impact on young people who will grow up to have a positive impact on the world. This is it.
I question the sanity (and/or honesty) of any longtime FIRSTers who say they don’t do this program at least in part for selfish reasons.
My sanity is questionable for sure. The selfish part, for me, is that I was trained in philosophy, not engineering, in college. I am always personally challenged by FRC to do things I didn’t learn to do in my youth.
Never worry about what others think when it comes to something you’re passionate about.
I proclaimed my selfishness in earlier post.
Well when Bill McGowan approached me in 1995 to help for a year because I was the kid that took the school’s RB5X apart and made it work: my goal was to help keep vocational education (without a half day commitment to vocational technical school like I made) accessible. The timing was neither great nor were there any notions of reward.
Over the years I had fun building FLL/FRC robots. Honestly though the shine has kind of worn thin for me with the competition.
These days I personally find much more personal technical satisfaction in my projects and other work.
Plus I am engaged to someone.
The biggest things in FIRST for me are fellow robot enthusiasts of all ages and some opportunities to be social. It is not the only charity to which I give resources.
Before (and for a while during First) I was a Scout leader. I now volunteer nearly 1000 hours a year in FLL, FTC and FRC. What motivates me? I cannot say “no” to anyone who wants to improve themselves. I know that is pretty simplistic but it serves me (and my wife Dottie). If you want to know something, just ask. If I don’t know, I will try and find an answer and then we will both know something new. Helping makes me happy. So I guess I am just doing something that makes me happy.
My mother always observed that I have a need to be needed and thus FIRST serves my sickneess perfectly.