Teamwork with the Next Generation

Abstract

This article discusses about Nightline, a robotics competition in which teams of students and engineers built robots that competed against each other in a sports-style event known as FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). Creativity, communication, project management, partnerships, and a fundamental re-energizing of the engineering spirit are among the benefits that engineers and their supervisors describe as side effects of their involvement. While access to a future employee pool may be the reason that many organizations decide to get involved with FIRST, those side benefits are the reason most of them continue to participate. In many respects, FIRST has been turning out to be a fountain of youth. When hiring engineers, defense contractors have the added hurdle of getting their employees security clearance.