You may already know that the FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. This is the second year that Aberdeen High School and the Science and Mathematics Academy at Aberdeen High School are competing in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) program.
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) was founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway personal transporter, to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. FIRST structures programs that are accessible to students at several levels of competition. FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), for high school students, like FIRST Lego League and FIRST VEX Challenge, centers on the design and building of robots around a challenge that changes from year to year.
The FRC engineering challenge involves designing and building a robot within a breathtakingly short six week period and taking it to competition. Teams are provided with some parts to construct the robot, but this is definitely not a build from a kit robot and students will need to fabricate parts from metal, plastic, and wood to assemble their final robot. For many team members, this is their first exposure to these skills, skills that will last them a lifetime.
This year the competition is entitled “Overdrive” and involves creating a robot that can move a 40 inch diameter track ball around the track and place it on a metal rack. As with all FRC competitions, scoring well depends on the design of the robot, well thought out strategy, and competence in execution.
While scoring well in competition is an important objective, it is more important if a team fulfills the goal of FIRST: to positively transform culture by inspiring young people, their schools, and communities to appreciate science and technology and to promote career choices in engineering. (More information about FIRST may be found at www.usfirst.org.)
A great deal of the experience of FIRST occurs during build: that six week period of designing, building, problem solving, frustration and understanding that is part of the life of working engineers. Guiding students through build are engineering mentors who volunteer their time and experience to foster the habits of mind and the integrity of the profession along with bushels of practical knowledge and skill to provide high school students with a life-altering experience.
The rest of the experience of FIRST is found at the robotic competitions that take place in over 30 U.S. States. At these competitions, teams learn to work cooperatively with their team and through groups of teams called alliances. These alliances, made up of three teams, practice sportsmanship and a very important FIRST credo called “gracious professionalism.” Developed by Woodie Flowers, this credo exemplifies all of the extremely important elements of FIRST. Gracious professionalism reflects respecting others and expressing that respect through the team’s actions. Gracious professionalism is an important principle that changes the FIRST competitions into “co-opetitions” and allows randomly assembled alliances to grow into friendships. The main idea of this FIRST credo is to encourage respect among teams and allow no team to feel “the loser” in a competition, but allow every team to be the winner.
