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Monday, March 29, 2010
FIRST sponsors eye long-term jobs pipeline
By Special to Mass High Tech
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Between the booming music and the boisterous cheering filling the air at Boston University’s Agannis Arena Saturday, a visitor would be excused for thinking he had stumbled into a NCAA basketball final instead of the Boston Regional FIRST Robotics Competition.
While a newcomer might have been surprised by the arena’s atmosphere, the event’s sponsoring companies weren’t: the buzzing enthusiasm of high school students getting excited about the possibilities of science and technology is the reason they’re involved in FIRST.
“This is science at work: the stuff you learn in math class applied to a machine,” said Colin Angle, chairman and chief executive officer of Bedford’s iRobot Corp., a participating sponsor of the event. “Robot building, design and invention is, in FIRST’s schools’ cases, just as much a varsity sport as the soccer or football team.”
FIRST was established in 1989 by inventor Dean Kamen to promote an appreciation of science and technology.
In its fifth year, the 2010 Boston Regional FIRST Robotics Competition drew more than 1,000 high school students who competed on 53 different teams with robots playing a soccer-style game. After two days of competition, three teams — TJ (Squared) from Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School, OzRam from Hopkinton High School and John Stark High School in New Hampshire, and Robo Chiefs from Nashoba Regional High School — emerged as the regional winners.
The Brazilian Machine from Provincia de Sao Pedro High School in Brazil, Rolling Thunder from New York’s Penfield High School and Infinite Loop from Messalonskee High School in Maine were the runner-up teams.
Representatives from sponsoring companies said Saturday that FIRST helps show students that science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, disciplines can be fun; the long-term benefit, they said, is more young people potentially pursuing technology-based degrees or careers.
“My number one problem isn’t technology. My number one problem is talent,” said Thomas V. McNamara, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Wilmington-based Textron Systems Corp., a bronze sponsor of the event.
It’s important to encourage students to explore STEM fields from an early age, he said.
“If you wait until they’re a senior in high school, it’s too late,” said McNamara, who said Textron Systems had hired a couple FIRST alumni.
“If we’re going to stay out there where we’ve been for the last 50 years, we’ve got to convince the kids,” he said.
Robin L. Saitz, a senior vice president with Needham’s PTC, a silver sponsor, echoed McNamara’s concerns about the pipeline of new engineers.
“Like our customers, we are interested in inspiring and creating the next generation of engineers,” she said. “Many of our customers believe that FIRST is one of the best ways to fill that pipeline.”
A competition such as FIRST not only teaches students technical skills, but also softer skills such as teamwork and public speaking, said Saitz.
“To have these kinds of skills to present to, in some cases, CEOs, senior vice presidents … We all want to hire them. We want to hire them now,” she said.
Increasing the number of young people interested in engineering and other similar fields is not just important for individual companies, but is also important for the country as a whole, said Jeffrey Cassis, chief executive officer of Burlington-based Philips, a participating sponsor.
“I think that the intellectual IQ in innovation is no longer resident just in the U.S.,” he said.
While the country is still maintaining its leadership position in creativity and entrepreneurship, more needs to be done to cultivate and encourage those skills at an early age, he said.
FIRST is one way to do just that, said Cassis.
“You can see the energy level (of the kids) … They get so passionate, so excited,” he said. “It’s the pipeline for, the funnel for, innovation.”
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