*It’s the very first White House Science Fair on Monday, Oct. 18! The prez will spotlight the winners of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions, then do some local Democratic fundraising in the evening. Here’s what’s on deck:
11:35 a.m. – Views science fair projects in the State Dining Room.
Noon – Delivers remarks at the White House Science Fair in the East Room. “If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too,” the president said in November, according to the White House.*
Congrats to the all-girls robotics team from the Los Angeles area!
I’m a little disappointed that there wasn’t more advanced notice to the FIRST community. I sent an e-mail to the robotics coordinator for Pasadena Unified School District just before the President made his remarks. With a little more notice, the webcast could have been viewed by many students in classrooms. THAT would truly be inspirational…
My understanding is they generally don’t want to publish too much info about who will visit the White House and when ahead of time for security reasons. I’m not surprised that we didn’t see anything until this morning.
Many of us have experienced some frustration with trying our best to convey/explain FIRST to reporters. Some of us have also experienced delight when what we tried to convey or thought we had conveyed shows up in well-crafted articles/reports. What that part of our job is - is to do it as well as we can as teams and participants, continuing to hone our skills in communication and working with the folks that help promote the program - the journalists/media.
This thread can point out the mistakes and shortcomings, true - but it really is a celebration of the teams and all those that shared this special day in the limelight that was centered on young people who enjoy thinking and doing the math. Let’s help celebrate with them!
Well done, teams. Hats off to our young people and mentors who make a difference and challenge the cultural status quo.
I’ve been posting articles and news stories all day long over at LinkedIN. It’s amazing how much publicity the FIRST teams have been getting as well as all the science and technology recognition. Kudos to those that organized it and those that participated. Hopefully this becomes a regular event and maybe even expands outside of Washington DC.
Congrats to the FIRST teams and to all the science and technology education programs which were spotlighted at the White House yesterday. We can nitpick about the details, but the bottom line is that this type of recognition has taken a long time to be realized in this way.
For our country to truly value technology and innovation, we need to celebrate it on a national scale. That’s what yesterday’s event did. We all should be proud of our FIRST teams and all the other great programs highlighted yesterday. While othes can learn more about FIRST, we can also learn about other efforts to generate excitement in the areas of science and technology.
In my post, I wasn’t necessarily thinking about what you wrote, Jenny, and I’m sorry if it sounded that way. As long as I’ve know you, I’ve known and respected your work in the areas of communication, esp. the 2 minute areas - the elevator pitch.
Truthfully, if the event/news source is given the proper and correct information and they are careless with their posting or reporting - then it shows that they have work to do, too. Communication is a two-way street. We see this every day in news coverage of events world-wide and how that coverage is treated/handled. With information comes responsibility.
So true. I have spent a lot of time explaining the Chairman’s award to people who’ve seen the coverage and ask why if we won the competition we aren’t the team there. It’s nice that people are talking about FIRST but has become a personal nuisance. Everytime I see a local FRC related article I find myself explaining the reality to people verses what the article has for information. While this issue isn’t as bad as it used to be I wish I didn’t cringe with every article I read thinking about what I need to explain to people when they come talk to me about it.
The robot competition is the most obvious, visible, and distilled-media-friendly part of the picture. It’s what people see when they attend a regional or championship event. It’s two thirds of the letters in FRC. We shouldn’t be surprised that it’s all that gets into the news coverage, when that coverage is managed by someone who isn’t already well versed in what FIRST is trying to do.
The rest of the story is harder to capture in photos or on video, and it’s harder to make it sound exciting in a newspaper article. The way to change this is probably to be consistently enthusiastic about the culture-change aspects of FIRST when talking to reporters, while almost apologetically acknowledging how much fun the robot side of things is.
Being consistently enthusiastic with a consistent message is not easy to do without sounding like a cult. We could use a reasonably large collection of things to say that restate the mission and vision of FIRST but don’t appear to be stock phrases.
KABLAM!!! is my most favorite enthusiastic word although ZAP!!! with lightning bolts is a close second.
Jane, your inner child is showing
I was talking to an executive at work, chatting about robots of course, when I casually mentioned how FIRST had affected my daughter by influencing her to choose a career in engineering. All of a sudden you could see him perk up and really take interest in what I was saying. It so happens that his daughter was having trouble finding a focus in school and getting hooked up with an FRC team last year is starting to help her get focused.
My point is that you never really know what is going to click with the person you are talking to, but they need some sort of context to frame what you are saying and make a connection. It’s tough with somebody you don’t know, you really have to be good at reading body language and other clues in order to get your point across.
It takes practice. So talk about FIRST every chance you get, watch their reactions, and hone your personal interaction skills.
P.S. At the Fall Workshops in San Diego, we are going to have a session on Elevator Pitches. Just one more opportunity to better our communication skills!
