Why You Should Join FIRST Robotics

FIRST Robotics is a worldwide robotics program that was created in 1989 by Dean Kamen. It is a program that is recognized as the highest level of high school robotics. Our team here at Central, PCCR, is thrilled to participate in this competition. After being founded in 2007 by Mr. Napovanic, we have grown into the team that we are today. This year we competed in 3 competitions, The West Palm Beach Regional, The Smoky Mountain regional (Knoxville), and the Greater Pittsburgh regional at Cal U. We ended up as semi finalists at the Smoky Mountain and West Palm Beach regional. We had 20 people on the team this year, however we need new people to join.

The benefits of joining this amazing program include; a chance to meet people from around the world. Gain more knowledge in the evolving field of robotics, be taught first hand by experienced mentors, and get to travel with the team. This year we have evolved from a team who came in last to a team who ended up as semi finalists at two tournaments. The tournaments that we go to feel more like a party than a competition, with DJ’s and actual parties happening post the day of competition.

A lot of you however probably have other commitments to teams and are wondering why this should be a priority. FIRST Robotics is in many ways a gateway to future technological pursuits. FIRST is sponsored by numerous corporations, with most of them sending executives to judge their local regionals. FIRST looks amazing on a college or job application. A large sum of scholarship money is also available, as some colleges will give you money just for being on a team.

If you are nervous that you do not have the basics of robotics or programming down don’t fret. Most of our current team came with little to no experience and we were taught how to do everything. Our mentors are willing to teach you how to do everything; from coding to building, and they do it with a very patient and kind hand guiding the way. As a team our main goal is to help people learn and become more interested in the STEM fields.

Our team would love to welcome you. We want you to help us achieve our dream of making it to the World Championships in St Louis. We want you to travel the country with us, competing against people from all around the world. But most of all, we want people to be able to pass the team onto when the current juniors graduate next year. We want to see this team flourish even when our days at Central are done. Thank you.