FIRST Robotics Competition

By David Liu, Sophomore

This year marked the twentieth season of a program, the FIRST Robotics Competition that, despite receiving little attention from the public and having few people that know of it, is far more important than what goes on in the world of sports and celebrities, since it is something that will profoundly affect the future of our world. FIRST does not have the purpose of entertaining or making a profit, yet it has a goal higher and more important than either.

In the FIRST Robotics Competition, teams of students and volunteer mentors create robots that are designed to perform certain tasks. This year, the task was for robots to pick up inner tubes and place them onto racks, and also deploy smaller robots to climb up poles. The robots are tested by having them perform this challenge alongside other robots, and the challenge functions much like a game, with robots on both sides of a battle, fighting it out in on the playing field.

One might ask about the purpose of a program that spends the time of students putting together robots for such seemingly silly and useless tasks. However, the purpose is explained by FIRST founder Dean Kamen. He says that FIRST Robotics is not about the robots, but like every student in FIRST knows, the mission of FIRST robotics is to spark interest in science and technology in the minds of young people, so they can develop the skills that will sustain the technological society of the next generation. After all, it’s what FIRST means: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. FIRST Robotics is also geared towards teaching students creativity, teamwork, and the indispensible virtue of gracious professionalism (a term coined by FIRST national advisor Woodie Flowers.)

I had the great privilege of being on the FIRST Robotics Team 2202 for Brookfield East. With the help of parent volunteers and mentors, the team created a robot using nothing but metal, plastic, electronics, and most importantly our ideas, cooperation, and determination. The result was an awesome robot that was able to do everything we had intended it to from day one. As a result of our efforts to make our robot simple, yet effective, the team won the prestigious Industrial Design Award, and prize given for excellent design.

Although our robot did not continue beyond the regional (we were 2nd in the qualifying matches and 3rd place overall), we all went home with smiling faces, proud of what we had learned and accomplished. Because as Dean Kamen emphasized, it is the journey that matters, and not the destination. So no matter what happens at the competitions, I hope that every team was able to celebrate success, because in the spirit of what FIRST is all about, everybody is a winner.