What does FIRST™ mean for me?
For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) is an organization that does a lot of really important, culture changing, earth-shattering, educational stuff. You can read about all of that here: www.usfirst.org or check out the 2102 FIRST™ at a Glance Video.
Now, the Real Scoop on What That Means To You in Your First Year of FIRST at SDA:
It’s easy to call us a robotics team. That’s because every year FIRST releases a new game that we have to build robots to compete in. The games themselves are basically “Robot Olympics,” and are often inspired by “human games.” For instance, in 2010 Our robot had to play “bumpy soccer.” It was a three on three soccer match, but with two three foot speed bumps cutting up the 27 by 54 foot field into thirds. Each speed bump had a nine foot tower on it, and at the end of the game, robots that could do a chin up on the tower got extra points. The robots themselves can be about five feet tall. We design and build that robot. The games we build our robots for are fast-paced, large-scale, and high-octane. This is a big deal.
That being said, WE ARE NOT JUST A ROBOTICS TEAM. It’s far more accurate to say we are a Robotics “Corporation.” For every kid who is working on the robot, there is at least one other kid crafting our public image, doing outreach projects mentoring younger kids in the community, writing grants, preparing presentations for potential sponsors (we need to raise about $36,000 each year, it’s almost like we are a “People Corporation” rather than a “Robotics Corporation” we sell the promise of amazing future employees!), and creating our video, essay, and oral submissions for the various much-coveted awards available at the competitions. Of course, a club of our size (more than 65 students) also requires a strong group of student leaders, whose job description is most accurately summed up as “everything.” Our leaders manage and direct all the other team activities, interface with school officials, make travel plans, schedules, deadlines, and manage to coordinate this massive endeavor while still contributing to the projects themselves.
Oh, and I should mention that virtually none of our students come in with any experience, but we always wind up have freshmen play wildly important roles in Sponsor/Award presentations and on developing and manufacturing critical systems of the robot. So how do you get from point A to point B?
One of the biggest goals of our team is to be easily accessible to new recruits. From the beginning of every school year to the end of winter break, we break new recruits into groups and pair them with a senior student who runs a “101 course” in their personal expertise (eg. fabrication, electronics, programming, design, Photoshop, fundraising, merchandising, outreach, community mentoring etc). Every couple weeks the groups are shuffled around so new students are exposed to a variety of skills that will help them become important, contributing members of the team from the get-go. The commitment level for new students at this stage is about 2-3 days a week for about 2 hours a day after school. We’re not strict at all about clocking kids’ hours, and we know everybody’s schedules are crazy, so this is on a flexible, “come when you can” basis. However, the fact of the matter is that you won’t learn anything if you don’t show up, and now is the time to get oriented and familiar with all the other Paradoxians. This is a team sport. If you don’t know the team, it’s hard to play the game.
Towards the end of this “Preseason,” new students will really get the opportunity to practice, apply, and develop their skills and find their favorite niche as the build team works on one or two practice/experimental projects and the PR teams get to work designing and creating team gear for the coming Competition Season!
“Competition Season” starts with “Kickoff” at the end of winter break. A small contingency of students drives off at the crack of dawn to the San Diego chapter live broadcast from New Hampshire of the unveiling of the new year’s competition. At home, another small troop downloads the new game rules as soon as they are released, and begins to create a mock arena in the Mustang Center. At a more reasonable hour of the morning the entire team gathers to study the game rules, begin analyzing objectives and strategy, and run human simulations of how the game might pan out.
From now through April, things get intense. Team Paradox meets every single day for increasingly lengthy periods of time. We need to brainstorm, prototype, test, design, draft, CAD, build, break, fix, redesign, saw, mill, weld, wire, program, test drive, tune, and tweak this machine so that it can actually perform at the competitions. This is no easy task, and that’s just the build side. The Marketing Team is busy designing, sewing, screen-printing, drawing, painting, printing, Photoshopping, Powerpointing, essay-writing, and video-editing, all of the fundraising merchandise, grants, presentations, and award submissions that keep the team and its image rolling.
This is a project that takes thousands of man hours, and while we start the build season going to only 5pm each day, by the 5 week mark the Marketing Computer Labs and the Metal Shop are kept open past 10pm every day. That’s what it takes to build a real working robot, and to keep this High School Corporation running. Because of this intensity, we have a strict policy of “school first,” and our faculty advisors keep watch over student’s grades so that nobody spirals out of control. We are not afraid to tell you to go home and study. This is a huge project, but this is a big team. We look out for each other, and nobody is shouldering the whole load alone.
We attend two regional competitions each year and for the past two years have made it to the world championships! For all but the San Diego regional, this requires a significant travel, the arrangements of which are worked out year to year by the team leadership, but always constitute at least two missed days of school and travel costs. Students generally stay overnight at a hotel (or nearby college dormitories) and travel by charter bus or plane with the team as a whole to and from the competitions, which are extensively chaperoned by parents. These costs are handled as a bundle and paid to the team, and while details change every year, they are available well in advance of the competitions, and scholarships are often available under certain circumstances.
Finally, the competitions themselves become a celebration of our hard work. We are still striving to perform well in competition; there is always a group of students hard at work presenting our team to judges, driving the bot and working in the “pit” (think NASCAR—the robot breaks, and you have to fix it fast). But the high-energy competitions are held in a spirit of jubilation. This is an opportunity to connect with other aspiring engineers, and to dance and cheer our team on in the name of SCIENCE! You really have to attend to comprehend the spirit of cooperation that every competitor feels with each other, because every kid in the stadium is there through their own hard work, and is striving towards the common goal of building a better world.
That’s FIRST, SDA Style. You will work harder than you ever thought you would. You will learn more than you ever thought you would. You will make bonds stronger than you ever thought you would.
We say, “Passion FIRST!”
-Isaac Spiegel
President 2009-2010