FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), founded by Dean Kamen, is an organization created to promote educational values in the realm of technology, engineering, management, and teamwork skills. By providing an engineering challenge, students, alongside teachers and mentors, design and assemble a viable solution. The challenge actually has less to do with engineering than is visible—the challenge tests students' abilities to work as a team under timed pressure toward a deadline.
On Team 1676, each sub-team is paired with a mentor. The students, as well as the mentors, are constantly learning. According to FIRST, “Involved engineers experience again many of the reasons they chose engineering as a profession, and the companies they work for contribute to the community while they prepare and create their future workforce. The competition shows students that the technological fields hold many opportunities and that the basic concepts of science, technology, engineering, and math are exciting and interesting." Every season, a mentor can be nominated for the Woodie Flowers Award. This award is named after the FIRST Executive Advisory Board Chairman, Woodie Flowers. The Woodie Flowers Award indicates the profound effect a mentor has upon their team; one who is a leader, inspiring, and effectively communicates the discipline of engineering, design, and technology.
FIRST is not only about building a robot, it is also about promoting the concepts of Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition.Competing with integrity includes respect toward others where winning is not the ultimate objective. The Pascack Pi-oneers' team motto reflects their belief in the importance of gracious professionalism. From the beginning, the team motto has been "Gracious Professionalism...Don't Leave High School Without It!"
Check out the FIRST Homepage
Here's the FIRST Press Room
