robots, philosophy, and more!

Ever since January, I have been participating in a robotic competition called FIRST. Basically, a team has 6 weeks to build a robot from scratch that performs a certain game, starting from a uniform kit of parts. Then, that team competes in the game using the robot as well as making a website, funding, programing, making shirts, and other things to keep the team happy and healthy.

Now, the main focus of FIRST is not who wins or loses, but the value of "gracious professionalism," or treating your opponents as friends as well as helping them out. In fact, the highest award, the Chairman's Award, celebrates that as well as outreaching to the community. But the whole reason FIRST was started was to show the coolness of engineering over those forces of entertainment and sports. The two highest awards, the Rookie All-Star and Chairman's Award celebrate those two points.


So, how am I involved in this? I am a proud member of Team 2449, Out of Orbit! It is made up of Marcos de Niza High School and James Madison Preparatory School. With the help of our sponsors, Orbital and the Arizona Science Foundation, we built a robot competing. As I mentioned before, there are two major awards, one of them which we got. We won Rookie of the Year at the AZ regionals, and got invited to Atlanta, Georgia to participate in the finals. That is what we did this weekend, but came home empty handed :(.

This is where the whole philosophy part comes in. The reason I joined FIRST was I agreed with the beliefs of FIRST. In my eyes, The worlds of entertainment and sports destroy the youth of today, forgetting other countries and "nerdy" concepts, such as engineering. If we have a chance, we need to take the chance and help our future, and that's what FIRST is all about. The process was hard and demanding, but overall it was a fun experience, and it gave me pride to think of my accomplishments. Also, FIRST offers over $100,000 dollars in scholarships. for more info, check out these

links:
FIRST's site:http://www.usfirst.org
Team 2449's site:http://www.team2449.com/
A tribute video (for more about the team):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJz4W1cd7SA





In other news, I want to start a new tradition of a section called Youtube spotlights. Basically, I talk about a user I really like on Youtube. So, here I go...

YOUTUBE SUPERSTAR THIS POST: animated93!

This user is responsible for such amazing feats such as making a animated version of Spamalot, Hairspray, Wicked, and other great modern musicals. His most recent project right now is Across the Universe, another Modern classic. What I like about him is he not only chooses musicals I like, he sets them brilliantly to movies such as loony Toons, Anime, Disney, and other animated hits. So, for his creativity, he is my first YOUTUBE SUPERSTAR!

Here is his channel:


So, to end my post, I wanted to leave you with dome quotes I picked up:

"FIRST is like the WWF, but for smart people!"
-George Bush senior
"The world is just awesome."
-Discovery channel
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own."
-Adam Savage from Mythbusters

Live long and prosper,
me