FIRST Robotics
By David Mittelman
Earlier this year I had the honor, for the second time in my life, to attend the Founder’s Reception at Dean Kamen’s house in Bedford, New Hampshire. Dean’s house, a virtual chapel of science, reminds me of why I have such a passion for Engineering. I went to introduce my idea to the world. The idea I feel will improve FIRST for the better. While FIRST is reaching thousands of potential engineers, as a community we are having trouble reaching those that are living in an urban environment, those that are underprivileged. As I read through the business plan I presented to the likes of Dean Kamen and Paul Gudonis, I felt that the best audience that would appreciate it would be the FIRST community, YOU. Like Dean said today, even though we are living in an economic recession of epic proportions, we are lucky to be able to actually participate in FIRST, to be able to go to school every day, to learn! IDEAS wishes to share this with those here, and everywhere around the world. So, this is the mission of IDEAS in regards to FIRST:
FIRST Robotics is having a direct impact on the future of the engineering community. A study conducted by the Center for Youth and Communities at Brandeis University found that students who participated in FIRST are nearly four times as likely to expect to pursue a career specifically in engineering (from the FIRST website, http://www.usfirst.org). The culture being developed at IDEAS parallels that of the FIRST community as a whole, promoting innovation and self-confidence. It would be irresponsible for a company within the engineering community not to support the growth of the community as a whole. The mission of FIRST is exactly that: “to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders.” At the core of IDEAS will be a partnership with FIRST to give those that have promise to lead the tech companies of the future that extra push through the door they have already opened for themselves by participating in FIRST.
One of the largest hurdles a FIRST team deals with is finding a space to work in and machines to work with. Often, sending something out to be machined is too cost prohibitive. To this end, IDEAS will have a dedicated space available to FIRST teams and members of the local community year round. The space will include a 1,000 square foot workshop, and access to the IDEAS machine shop as well high speed internet access. The space will be available to any team that wishes to use it, near or far. By providing a common space to work in to all FIRST teams, FIRST teams wi
ll be working in the space side by side. Working in such close proximity, an environment of Gracious Professionalism will promote a two-directional exchange of ideas, allowing senior teams to help newer teams, and moving the focus away off winning the competition. The goal of FIRST is not to win the Championships. While it is a nice reward, the competition is just a vehicle to promote the environment and attitude of FIRST. An environment and attitude IDEAS wishes to generate within its walls.
Also, in the spirit of FIRST, IDEAS hopes to create a new Championship Award, akin to the Woodie Flowers award. Where the Woodie Flowers award celebrates an outstanding mentor, the IDEAS award will celebrate outstanding students. With the receipt of the award an invitation will be extended to the student to work as an intern for a developer at IDEAS over the following summer. All expenses will be taken care of, much in the same way as for the developers, and they will be paid a stipend for their work commensurate with the income they could expect from an average summer job. The number of awards given will grow as IDEAS grows, inviting a number of students to IDEAS so the student to developer ratio is 1:1. Exposing those within the FIRST Community who are seeking to excel with the opportunity to get hands on experience in a real engineering and research environment will affect more than the few who come to work at IDEAS. Moods are contagious. When these students return to their teams with an attitude and thirst for engineering that was stimulated by their experience, they will pass it on to their peers.
