Inspiration at World Championships

This past week, I had the amazing opportunity to attend FIRST Robotics Competition's World Championships with my robotics team. For some, this was a chance to observe the best high school-made robots in the world. For all, it was a time to learn and experience all that FIRST had to offer. For me, it was the experience I had been dreaming of to bond with my fellow robotics team.

The things we do at robotics are not simple. In 6 weeks, we are expected to build a fully functional robot for a specific task. But in addition to the mechanical aspect of the team, we have to maintain a group that takes a lot of planning to run. My closest friends on the team are probably those I've worked with the most: the marketing team. Together, we help manage--keeping us hyped and ready for competitions while making us look like a cohesive team.

Like any other sport or extracurricular, friendships are forged through the experiences with each other. The more time you spend with these people, the more you come to enjoy their presence. I realized this early in competition season last year. While at a regional competition my freshman year, I felt a bit of what the seniors felt in their four years together--utter adoration for each other and the program.

Being at worlds gave me a similar, but more powerful, feeling. The juniors and seniors above me and freshman below me have always been amazing friends. But until our time together this past week, I had not truly observed the familial bond that's been keeping me a part of FIRST robotics.

I am not a technical person. I've learned many things in my time on the robotics team, and I hope to learn many more throughout the rest of high school. But being on the team is an opportunity for me to work in business type relations with people to manage the team. I can respect how everyone has found his or her niche on the team while never excluding others. Hopefully, as my class gets older, the bonds between the students grow deeper and even more loving and compassionate. Hopefully by senior year, we can inspire incoming freshmen the way that the seniors inspired me.

I think it's really important to get involved with something and find your niche. I never would have envisioned myself on the robotics team if it weren't for the passion of the upperclassmen who looked like they were having the time of their lives building and making things. But here I am now, and here is my passion. Even if my passion is just the love within the team, the passion exists, and it will hold me to them until senior year.