You need to know about FIRST

The organization inspires young people to be science and technology aficionados

BY JIM HARRISON

While at Renesas DevCon recently I had the pleasure of hearing Dean Kamen talk about his nonprofit organization FIRST, an organization that deserves your attention. Its mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering, and technology skills, plus inspire innovation and foster well-rounded life capabilities. The annual program culminates in an international robotics competition where teams win recognition, gain self-confidence, and develop life skills. FIRST needs industry mentors like you to make their program successful. This is where you can help, participate, and shine.

Dean Kamen is an inventor and entrepreneur most well known for inventing the Segway personal transporter. He founded the company DEKA, which is doing some very innovative designs in energy generation and water purification (www.dekaresearch.com). He came up with the idea for FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) way back in 1989, and this year the Manchester, NH, group is projected to engage 304,000+ students and set up 29,300 student teams with 57,000+ mentors/adult supporters and 63,000+ other volunteers.

Young people in the U.S. are just not interested in science and engineering. Not like the old days when I went to school. If you interview your local high school principal, she/he will tell you that less than 10% of students are interested in science/math/engineering. It’s just not in anymore, and hasn’t been for a while. Meanwhile, U.S. economic viability and the health of many U.S. companies is dependent on having a creative and technically astute staff. Increasing the effectiveness of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in the United States will greatly benefit the nation’s economic competitiveness and overall welfare. We can and must do more to engage young people in technology.

Dean cites the sports model. The heroes of students are often sports figures (along with Hollywood and music figures) and many students engage in after school sports. Why not put science forward in a similar way? “You have teenagers thinking they’re going to make millions as NBA stars when that’s not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is,” Dean says.

The FIRST progression of robotics programs provides ever increasing challenges by introducing elementary school students to Junior FIRST LEGO League, then FIRST LEGO League to middle school students, and finally, FIRST Tech Challenge or FIRST Robotics Competition to high-school students. We at Electronic Products support the efforts of FIRST and hope we can convince our readers to get involved. Become a mentor at your local school through First. Go to this website, which will give you the e-mail address of your local contact: www.usfirst.org/regional-contacts. Send a brief e-mail and get started right away. ■