Hello World!

Hello bloggers! Greetings from FIRST Robotics team Cyber Blue 234!

What is FIRST, you ask? Technically it’s an acronym that stands for “For inspiration and recognition of science and technology.” What is the organization? Something pretty fabulous. It was founded by Dean Kamen in ___ and the mission of the organization is to, well, inspire students to go into scientific and technological fields and to get people to recognize the merit of science and technology.

As Woodie said at kick-off, we’re all a bunch of nerds bordering on “Super-nerds.”

FIRST had fairly humble beginnings with few teams and a competition in a school gym but has expanded to include thousands of teams, over forty regional and district competitions, and a championship event at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Every January, a new game is announced on a live broadcast to teams watching around the world, and the six week build season commences. During those six weeks, teams cut, hammer, weld, wire, and program away at their robots, their masterpieces, the ambrosia of their labors. Then the bots are packed, shipped, and the competitions begin!

One of the best things about FIRST is that it stresses “gracious professionalism” and helping those whom you are competing against. So not only is the program the football of the sports world (be you Eurpoean, South American, or just plain ol’ American, football in all forms dominates the sports world), but the founders tell us to be nice to each other! Imagine, teams who are trying to beat each other for titles, awards, and a fame of sorts being nice to each other, lending out tools to repair robots, and even sitting on the floor, teams co-mingling, to make sure that an opponent’s robot can work at a top-notch level! See, we “super-nerds” get more of a thrill out of knowing that we won against the best. And being nice always makes one feel a little squishy inside, doesn’t it?

Nicely done, Dean.

Now comes the second question. Where does Cyber Blue 234 fit into all of this?

Cyber Blue 234 started eleven years ago at Perry Meridian High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. We have had our fair share of trials and tribulations including major shifts in leadership three years in a row, and a lovely robot that was a box in a box. But we’ve also done some pretty cool things. The seven ten match, multiple successful seasons, and we have a pretty nice trophy case in the main hallway of our school. We always strive to spread the word of FIRST in our every day doings, and by “every day,” we do mean every day. We don’t only work the six weeks of the build season, but we work all year round trying to inspire people to join teams, go into the fields of science and technology, or even just to get them to ask what we do in our school’s dungeon for so many days out of the year. We go out in the community and not only get the word out, but we help people while we do it. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

I’m sure that you’re just in love, right? Wanting to know what you can do to be a part, right? Of course you are. Here’s what you do. Subscribe, follow, and stalk this blog with your very life. It will be the best click you made or make all week. We promise.

Week one of the build season is wrapping up, so look for an overview within the next day or two!