FIRST

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FIRST
Founder(s) Dean Kamen
Type 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public charity
Founded 1989
Headquarters Manchester, NH
Key people Dean Kamen, Founder
John Abele, Chairman of the Board
Paul Gudonis, President
Woodie Flowers, Vice Chairman
Revenue $20,803,521[1]
Volunteers 60,000
Members 130,000 students
10,652 robots
37,000 mentors
27,000 event volunteers[2]
Slogan "To create a world where science and technology are celebrated... where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes"
Website usfirst.org

FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1989 in order to develop ways to inspire students in engineering and technology fields. The organization is the foundation for the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST LEGO League, Junior FIRST Lego League, and FIRST Tech Challenge competitions.

FIRST also operates FIRST Place, a research facility at FIRST Headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire where it holds educational programs and day camps for students and teachers.[3]

Contents

[edit] Philosophy

FIRST seeks to promote a philosophy of teamwork and collaboration among engineers and encourages competing teams to remain friendly, helping each other out when necessary. The term frequently applied to this ethos is "gracious professionalism," a term coined by Woodie Flowers which supports respect towards one's competitors and integrity in one's actions.[4]

[edit] FIRST Robotics Competition

Main article: FIRST Robotics Competition
a 2008 FRC robot
a 2008 FRC robot

The first program developed through FIRST was the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), which is designed to inspire high school students to become engineers by giving them real world experience working with professional engineers to develop a robot. The inaugural FIRST Robotics Competition was held in 1992 in the Manchester Memorial High School gymnasium.[5] As of 2008, over 1500 high school teams totaling over 37,000 students from Brazil, Canada, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom[2], and more compete in the annual competition. The competition challenge changes each year, and the teams can only reuse certain components from previous years. The robots weigh around 120 lb (54 kg), depending on that year's rules. The kit issued to each team contains a base set of parts. Registration and the kit of parts together cost about US$6000. In addition to that, teams are allowed to spend another $3500 on their robot. The purpose of this rule is to lessen the influence of money on teams' competitiveness. Details of the game are released on the first Saturday in January, and the teams are given six weeks to construct a robot that can accomplish the game's tasks.[6] In 2008, teams participated in 41[7] regional competitions throughout March in an effort to qualify for the FIRST Championship in Atlanta, Georgia in April. Previous years' Championships have been held in Houston, Texas and at Walt Disney World's Epcot.[8]. Each year the First Robotics Competition has scholarships for the participants in the program. In 2008 there was $9.8 million worth of scholarships from 108 colleges and universities, associations, and corporations.

[edit] FIRST Lego League

Main article: FIRST Lego League

In 1998, the FIRST Lego League (FLL), a program similar to the FIRST Robotics Competition, was formed. It is aimed at 9 to 16-year-old students and utilizes Lego Mindstorms sets (NXT or RCX) to build palm-sized Lego robots, which are then programmed using the ROBOLAB software to autonomously compete against other teams[9]. The ROBOLAB software is based on National Instruments' LabView industrial control engineering software. The combination of interchangeable Lego parts, computer 'bricks', sensors, and the aforementioned software, provide preteens and teenagers with the capability to build reasonably complex models of real-life robotic systems.[citation needed] This competition also utilizes a research element that is themed with each year's game, and deals with a real-world situation for students to learn about through the season.

[edit] Junior FIRST Lego League

Main article: Junior FIRST Lego League

The Junior FIRST Lego League is a variation of the FIRST Lego League, aimed towards elementary school children, in which 6-9-year-olds build Lego models dealing with that year's FLL challenge. At least one part of a model has a moving component. The teams participate in exhibitions around the country, where they demonstrate and explain their models and research for award opportunities.

[edit] FIRST Tech Challenge

Main article: FIRST Tech Challenge

The FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC), formerly FIRST Vex Challenge (FVC), is a mid-level robotics competition announced by FIRST on March 22, 2005. According to FIRST, this competition was designed to be a more accessible and affordable option for schools. FIRST has also said that the FTC program was created for those of an intermediate skill level. FIRST Tech Challenge robots are approximately one-third the scale of their FRC counterparts. The FTC competition is meant to provide a transition for students from the FLL competition to the FRC competition. FTC was developed for the Vex Robotics Design System, which is available commercially.[10]

The 2005 FVC pilot season featured a demonstration of the FIRST Vex Challenge using a 1/3 linear scale mock-up of the 2004 FRC Competition, FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar. For their 2005-2006 Pilot Season, FVC teams played the Half-Pipe Hustle game using racquet balls and ramps.

For the 2006-2007 FTC Season, the FIRST Tech Challenge teams competed in the Hangin'-A-Round challenge using softballs, rotating platforms, a hanging bar, and a larger 'Atlas' ball which is significantly larger than most Vex robots and harder to manipulate.[11][12] Competitions were held around the United States, Canada, and Mexico.[13]

[edit] Political involvement

Each year during his speech at the kickoff event, founder Dean Kamen gives the student participants a homework assignment. It often involves spreading the word about FIRST in various ways, such as increasing attendance at regionals (2005)[14], mentoring rookie teams, making sure that FIRST-specific scholarships are applied for (2004)[15], and researching the capabilities of motors and disseminating that information to other teams (2006)[16]. In 2007, Dean's homework was for each team to contact their government officials (e.g. mayors, legislators, governors, federal officials) and invite them to a FIRST regional or the championship to expose them to the competition and increase the level of political awareness of FIRST. In 2008, it was to inform the media more about FIRST. Any responses (or lack thereof) would be publicly posted on the FIRST Q&A forum.[17]

The efforts to attract political attention to FIRST in 2007 were quite successful, with visits to regional including the US Secretary of Commerce, 4 US Senators, 8 members of Congress, 4 state governors, 7 mayors, and a deputy Prime Minister. Following the FIRST Championship Event in Atlanta in April, the championship winners were invited to the White House to demonstrate their robots to President Bush and members of Congress. Further, FIRST President Paul Gudonis was invited to testify before the Congressional Committee on Education and Labor about FIRST's achievements and goals.[18]

In 2008, former President of the United States George Herbert Walker Bush spoke at the World Championship in Atlanta.

[edit] Timeline

Note: All years indicate the year that the championship for that game was held.

Year FRC FLL FTC
1992 Maize Craze
1993 Rug Rage
1994 Tower Power
1995 Ramp 'n Roll
1996 Hexagon Havoc
1997 Toroid Terror
1998 Ladder Logic
1999 Double Trouble Pilot Year
2000 Co-Opertition FIRST FIRST Contact
2001 Diabolical Dynamics Volcanic Panic
2002 Zone Zeal Arctic Impact
2003 Stack Attack City Sights
2004 FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar Mission Mars
2005 Triple Play No Limits Demonstration
2006 Aim High Ocean Odyssey Pilot Year: Half-Pipe Hustle
2007 Rack 'n Roll Nano Quest Hangin'-A-Round
2008 FIRST Overdrive Power Puzzle Quad Quandary

[edit] References

  1. ^ 2006 FIRST Annual Report, Retrieved on 2007-04-05
  2. ^ a b FIRST At A Glance, Retrieved on 2007-04-04
  3. ^ FIRST Place
  4. ^ Gracious Professionalism. FIRST. Retrieved on 2008-01-12.
  5. ^ FIRST History, usfirst.org
  6. ^ 2008 FIRST Robotics Competition Manual and Related Documents
  7. ^ FRC Regional Events. FIRST. Retrieved on 2007-01-08.
  8. ^ FIRST Robotics Competition. FIRST. Retrieved on 2006-06-09.
  9. ^ FLL History
  10. ^ What is FVC?
  11. ^ Welcome to the 2006 FVC season!
  12. ^ 2006 FVC Manual, Sect. 1-8
  13. ^ FVC Events
  14. ^ Transcript of 2005 FRC Kickoff
  15. ^ Transcript of 2004 FRC Kickoff
  16. ^ Transcript of 2006 FRC Kickoff
  17. ^ FIRST Forums: Dean's Homework
  18. ^ USFIRST.org

[edit] External links

v • d • e
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)
People
Dean Kamen  · John Abele  · Paul Gudonis  · Woodie Flowers
Competitions
Themes in FRC
1992: Maize Craze  · 1993: Rug Rage  · 1994: Tower Power  · 1995: Ramp 'n Roll  · 1996: Hexagon Havoc  · 1997: Toroid Terror  · 1998: Ladder Logic  · 1999: Double Trouble  · 2000: Co-Opertition FIRST  · 2001: Diabolical Dynamics  · 2002: Zone Zeal  · 2003: Stack Attack  · 2004: FIRST Frenzy: Raising the Bar  · 2005: Triple Play  · 2006: Aim High  · 2007: Rack 'n Roll  · 2008: FIRST Overdrive
Themes in FLL
2000: FIRST Contact  · 2001: Volcanic Panic  · 2002: Arctic Impact  · 2003: City Sights  · 2004: Mission Mars  · 2005: No Limits  · 2006: Ocean Odyssey  · 2007: Nano Quest  · 2008: Power Puzzle
Themes in FTC
2006: Half-Pipe Hustle  · 2007: Hangin'-A-Round  · 2008: Quad Quandary