| Non-profit | |
| Non-profit_name | FIRST |
| Non-profit_logo | |
| Non-profit_type | 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public charity |
| founded_date | 1989 |
| founder | Dean Kamen |
| location | Manchester, NH |
| origins | |
| key_people | Dean Kamen, Founder
John Abele, Chairman of the Board
Paul Gudonis, President
Woodie Flowers, Vice Chairman |
| area_served | |
| focus | |
| method | |
| revenue | $20,803,521 |
| endowment | |
| num_volunteers | 60,000 |
| num_employees | |
| num_members | 130,000 students
10,652 robots
37,000 mentors
27,000 event volunteers |
| owner | |
| Non-profit_slogan | To create a world where science and technology are celebrated... where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes |
| homepage | usfirst.org |
| dissolved | |
| footnotes |
|
, 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, the
FIRST LEGO League, and the
FIRST Tech Challenge competition.
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.
[FIRST Place ]
FIRST Robotics Competition
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.
[FIRST History , usfirst.org] As of 2007, over 1300 high school teams totaling over 32,306 students from
Brazil,
Canada,
Israel,
Mexico, the
Netherlands, the
United States, the
United Kingdom, and more compete in the annual competition. The competition challenge changes each year, and the teams cannot reuse components created for previous robots. The robots weigh around 120 pounds (depending on the current year's rules). The kit issued to each team contains a base set of parts. Details of the game are released at the beginning of January, and the teams are given six weeks to construct a competitive robot that can accomplish the game's tasks. In 2007, teams competed in 37
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.
FIRST LEGO League
In 1998, the
FIRST LEGO League (FLL), a program similar to the FIRST Robotics Competition, was formed. It is aimed at 9-14-year-old students and utilizes
LEGO Mindstorms sets to build palm-sized LEGO robots, which are then programmed using the ROBOLAB software to autonomously compete against other teams
[FLL History ]. The ROBOLAB software is based on
National Instruments'
LabView industrial control engineering software. The combination of interchangeable LEGO parts, computer 'bricks' and sensors, and the aforementioned software, provide preteens and teenagers with the capability to build reasonably complex models of real-life robotic systems. 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.
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.
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.
[What is FVC? ]
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.
[Welcome to the 2006 FVC season! ][2006 FVC Manual, Sect. 1-8 ] Competitions were held around the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
[FVC Events ]
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)
[Transcript of 2005 FRC Kickoff ], mentoring rookie teams, making sure that FIRST-specific scholarships are applied for (2004)
[Transcript of 2004 FRC Kickoff ], and researching the capabilities of motors and disseminating that information to other teams (2006)
[Transcript of 2006 FRC Kickoff ]. 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. Any responses (or lack thereof) would be publicly posted on the FIRST Q&A forum.
[FIRST Forums: Dean's Homework ]
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 vice 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.
[http://www.usfirst.org/who/content.aspx?id=5574]
Timeline
Note: All years indicate the year that the championship for that game was held.
References