HBHS among schools preparing for FIRST challenge

Imagine a 70,000-seat arena packed with screaming fans. Cheerleaders and mascots roam through the crowd. On the field, the spectacle of competition is on full display. And at halftime, the Black Eyed Peas take the stage and perform. Now imagine that this isn’t the Super Bowl, nor any other professional sporting event. These are high school students, and the athletes on the field are robots. This is FIRST Robotics. The National Academy of Engineering, the National Science Foundation, the leaders of top universities and the president of the United States all agree: In order for our nation to remain economically competitive and technologically innovative, we must improve our national scholastic performance in the STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Students in the United States now rank 23rd in science and 31st in math out of 65 developed nations, and fewer and fewer scholars are going to universities to pursue STEM careers. “If America is to win the future of invention and discovery, we must first capture the minds and imaginations of young scientists and innovators,” FIRST Robotics founder Dean Kamen said. “More than 20 years ago, after realizing that the way to get kids interested in science and technology would be to give them a sport to succeed in, I founded FIRST, a program that encouraged students to pursue STEM careers through robotics competitions.” The name seemed appropriate; after all, kids don’t run around with their arms in the air yelling that they’re going to be SECOND. Two decades later, FIRST has hundreds of thousands of alumni in more than 50 countries. These veterans are three times as likely as their peers to study engineering and are more likely to secure internships, pursue STEM careers and volunteer in their communities. The key component of FIRST isn’t the thrill of building a high-functioning robot – although that’s pretty cool.