INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Leigh Nathan

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FIRST teaches kids to think like engineers

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Dr. Leigh Nathan

FIRST Alumna, Connecticut

I'm a psychiatrist and a proud product of FIRST. I participated in FIRST in high school and mentored in college at Northeastern University. FIRST was a prominent factor in my choice of college and major, as well as my decision to study medicine.

As a FIRST team member, I had spent enough time picking out bearings for robot arm assemblies to know a good bearing design when I saw one. One evening, I happened to take a look at my hand and realized that the finger joints are actually very impressive bearings. They're self-lubricating, seemingly friction-less, and have a lifespan of upwards of a hundred years. In the same instant that I think of moving my fingers, they've already moved and with remarkable precision. How cool is it that? I was so struck by the mechanical elegance of the human body, that I decided to go to medical school and learn more about it.

FIRST taught me a lot of things, but there are two that I want to call your attention to. The first is Gracious Professionalism®, which teaches us that when we lend a hand to our competitors, we all win. It has us recognize the humanity in our competitors and the value of encouragement, mentorship, and opportunities to learn by doing. It's therapeutic and I am certain that, though there is no randomized control trial to verify this, it reduces or prevents depression and anxiety among the young people who participate in FIRST.

I practice Gracious Professionalism every day at work, but by a different name. In this new era of psychiatry, it's called the recovery model. There are volumes of evidence showing that those essential ingredients of Gracious Professionalism, those big doses of encouragement, mentorship, opportunities, and tools for achievement are crucial for recovery from episodes of mental illness, addiction, and homelessness.

The second point is the design process. Healthcare is undergoing an essential redesign, becoming more efficient and more patient/family/provider/tax payer-centered, in part because hospitals have been adopting quality practices from the manufacturing world. This involves training seasoned healthcare workers to think like process engineers.

Healthcare workers who can design in groups are very well poised to transform our healthcare system. Can you imagine how phenomenally efficient our healthcare system could be if the healthcare workers of the future were trained to think like engineers years before they ever thought about becoming a clinician? FIRST does this. After a few seasons of FIRST, the process of designing anything with others, with few resources, becomes as intuitive as riding a bike. 


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INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Maya Varma

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FIRST encourages perseverance

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Maya Varma

FIRST Alumna
Winner, Bart Kamen Memorial FIRST Scholarship

When I joined FIRST with my friends, I wasn't dreaming of engineering. I just wanted to have fun. As a result, the creative engineering skills I accumulated over years of building and rebuilding robots for FIRST programs helped me win the Intel Science Award for my medical devices. But FIRST programs taught me more than just technical skills. They taught all of us perseverance. Our team’s early robot was a miserable failure. But we kept at it and eventually won awards at Championship, and I even got invited to the White House Science Fair. We learned how to deal with failure and improve ourselves, all while having fun.


INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Hakan Habip

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The FIRST experience empowers participants and their communities

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Hakan Habip

FIRST Volunteer, Turkey

My view is that FIRST is about building humanity in the world. By expanding the depth and width of its reach, FIRST can build humanity in everyone.

In 2000, I dreamed of nurturing digitally savvy youth to help unleash positive change in Turkey. My wife discovered FIRST, and we soon organized FIRST LEGO League tournaments. With the help of many, we just finished our 12th season and already have over 11,000 digitally, robotically, and graciously savvy youth from 47 cities! The participants have improved their design, coding, research, and presentation skills. More importantly, they have learned to practice empathy.

They are also strong communicators. They take pride in discovery, in listening, in kindness, in sharing, in Gracious Professionalism®. They have developed win-win attitudes. Corporate donations have allowed us to reach girls, the underprivileged, and the traumatized. As one example, 150 of our students are from the Soma region, the site of a tragic mining accident. Each student lost a relative or a neighbor.

Their FIRST LEGO League experience gave back their voices, their smiles, and built a capacity to deal with the trauma. Yes, FIRST also allowed them to take a memorable selfie with popular rock stars. The team Coaches say the meek students have learned to stand up, and the egocentric students have learned to share and cooperate.

Over the past nine months, at least five bombs have exploded in our part of the world. The stark reality is there is a will to enslave humanity through fear, coupled with inequalities, failed ecologies, and increasing violent weather patterns. Together, these issues feed higher risks on conflicts. Parallel efforts from many are needed to find timely and consistent solutions.

Issues among countries exist, but among children they do not. Let me repeat: Issues among countries exist, but among children none do. Let us capitalize on this. The FIRST experience empowers its participants and their communities. The mere sight of FIRST students gives hope to everyone. Let us run FIRST competitions for Turkey and our neighbors. Gracious children will heal their communities. In turn, these communities will help bring peace.


INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Freya Wilhelm

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FIRST inspires student to make positive life changes

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Freya Wilhelm

Member of  FIRST Robotics Competition Team 4263, Cyber Dragons

I had a lot of challenges: substance abuse, relationship problems, social skills, no direction in my life. Then I joined a FIRST team. I started learning to use power tools and working with dangerous equipment, so I realized I can’t show up without being sober because I’m just putting myself and others at risk. It really helped me stop abusing substances. This year, as a team captain, I have to help people come to agreements, something I never thought I could do. Now, I want to go to college for mechanical engineering. FIRST really changed my life.


INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Josue Melgar

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FIRST helps students find a community

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Josue Melgar

2015 Dean’s List Finalist, Mexico

I became a 2016 Dean’s List Finalist at the Mexico City Regional event I attended with my rookie FIRST Robotics Competition team, Team 6199, E-hawks. It was incredible!

Dean’s List Finalists are special guests of the FIRST Championship. Attending the FIRST Championship from another country is not an easy task. My Mentor and team mates said, "We need to help him. He has the opportunity to go to the Championship, and we are very proud of him." The Championship was amazing. It was a celebration of science and technology. It celebrated young people’s effort to change the world and make it a better place.

After Championship, my father changed jobs, and my family moved to another city. I needed FIRST, and said to my parents that I need a school with a FIRST Robotics Competition team. I arrived a week after the first day of class, and the team at my new school only needed a programmer to be complete. I was a programmer on the E-hawks! Now, I am a proud member of FIRST Robotics Challenge Team 6229, Spartans, and FIRST Tech Challenge Team 8327, Spartans, in Metepec, Mexico. 


INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Stephen Robertson

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FIRST encourages students to give back

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Stephen Robertson

2015 Dean’s List Finalist, FIRST Alum, Arizona

I was the first Dean’s List Finalist in the history of my FIRST Robotics Competition team, Team Paradise 1165. Being a Dean’s List Finalist empowered me to grow.

I realized it was time to give back to those who had given so much to me, such as my Mentors and local FIRST organizers. With that in mind, I set out to help Arizona FIRST LEGO League, which was my introduction to FIRST. I worked with my father to design and build a new FIRST LEGO League practice board that is cheap to make, easy to move, and durable. We created a tutorial video on how to make this teacher-friendly board, and made the instructions available for free on the web. I presented this new design at our state kickoff and held a drawing for the two boards we had made.

I also began talking with the local FIRST LEGO League director about introducing a new award for state events. The Ian Lao Award, named after our extremely dedicated Arizona State FIRST LEGO League Championship head referee, was awarded at the state championship to the Volunteer who has inspired students, just as Mr. Lao inspired me.

I also helped start new teams in my area. At my little sister’s middle school, I proposed starting a FIRST Tech Challenge team. We had so many kids join that we had to start a second team! At the Arizona Challenger Space Center, where I volunteer, I proposed creating a community FIRST Robotics Competition team to serve parts of the Northwest valley of Phoenix, where I live. Now it’s the team goal of “LAUNCH TEAM 6352” to “Make It Loud” and spread the word about FIRST.


INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Mohamed Abu Fawdah

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FIRST brings trust between communities

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Mohamed Abu Fawdah

Mentor of FIRST Robotics Competition Team 1946, FG in Tamra, Israel 

Mohamed Abu Fawdah started the first-ever Arab/Israeli FIRST team in 2005, no simple task in an Israeli state. Mohamed has done more than break the Arab/Israeli mold. He has started a multi-cultural team including boys and girls, where girls are treated as equals, which is rarely seen there. “We were fearful of bringing the wider conflict into the FIRST community,” said Alisha MacIntyre, founder and former co-regional director of FIRST Israel, “but it wasn’t even on the students’ radar. They became friends. Our conclusion: Technology, robots, and kids can bring trust between communities and better opportunities for all.”

Associated quotes from student members:

Yaara Abu Fawdah, Alumna, FIRST LEGO League and FIRST Robotics Competition; Neuroscience student, Tel Aviv University:

“It’s empowering that an Arab’s perception of Jews and a Jew’s perception of Arabs is a little bit changed and different. We can live together and make beautiful robots together.”

Nadine Khanan, Alumna, FIRST Robotics Competition; Medical student, Tel Aviv University:

“Our team has a majority of girls. It made us feel special and different in a good way.”

Nuur Awhad, 10th Grader:

“I never thought I could ever be a part of something like this. It’s so much bigger than building robots. It changes the way you think.”


INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Gustavo Mendoza

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FIRST builds students’ confidence and pride

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Gustavo Mendoza

Member of FIRST Robotics Competition Team 4355, CPBOT, Mexico

We are proud that our team now has confidence and pride: 75 percent of our team members have decided to study engineering — a first for our school. We are proud to teach little kids in our community about robotics and tell them to continue their studies. We are proud that we are an example to other young people in our community.


INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Austin Ahern

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FIRST prepares students to serve the nation

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Austin Ahern

2015 Dean’s List Finalist, FIRST Alum

I am a 2016 graduate of FIRST Robotics Competition Team 1987, The Broncobots, and received the Dean’s List Finalist award at the Greater Kansas City Regional in 2015. I am now a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy.

I strongly believe I would not be where I am today if I had not been a part of FIRST and especially having received the honor that is Dean’s List. FIRST introduced me to a world of science and engineering that I quickly fell in love with. My first weekend in the robotics shop my freshman year, I stayed until at least 2 a.m. It was the first of many late nights there. I took on as many roles on the team as I could, trying to learn as much as possible.

When I started looking into colleges, I found the United States Air Force Academy is one of the top engineering schools in the nation, and would allow me to serve the nation I love and give back, a concept FIRST promotes. You cannot go through FIRST without it changing you. In fact, one of my Mentors is a member of the Air Force. His knowledge, insight, and wisdom helped take an interest and lead me to choose this career.

The Air Force Academy wants students who are well rounded, have very strong academics, very good time management skills, are passionate about STEM, and are leaders fit to be Officers. These are all qualities of Dean’s List Finalists. That helped set me apart from my peers when applying.

Basic Cadet Training was about six weeks – the same length of a FIRST Robotics Competition build season. Being able to think about where I would be in a build season helped me get through my training. Instead of me building a robot, my instructors were building me into a cadet. 


INSPIRATION IS EVERWHERE

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Lauren Lyons

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FIRST redefines students’ idea of success

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Lauren Lyons 

FIRST Alumna

Eighteen years ago, a teacher got me interested in FIRST through promises of a trip to Disney. Who could resist that? I joined FIRST for Mickey, but I stayed for the robots.

Lauren Lyons credits FIRST Mentors for her transformation from shy young girl to confident, successful SpaceX engineer helping the company to launch re-usable rockets and send humans to space. They helped her understand what real engineers do and that engineering tasks could be fun — machining parts, wiring circuit boards, designing pneumatic actuators. She got hooked.

Being a FIRST Alum at Princeton gave Lauren the confidence to successfully tackle challenging course work. While mentoring a local FIRST team, she was befriended by long-term FIRST Volunteer Dave Lavery from NASA,who helped her win a NASA internship working on the Mars rovers. It was the beginning of an exciting career -- and a long-term mentoring friendship.

“It’s not only those Mentors that I hold dear, it’s the FIRST lessons of Coopertition® and Gracious Professionalism®,” said Lyons.