A Special Page for School Teachers

I hope all teachers that visit this site will take a minute and read this page.  This information is crucial for you.

My name is Roger Smith and I am the parent of two high-school students.  I am a software engineer and have been actively involved with FIRST since January 2007.  I would like to share with you my feelings about the FIRST program and why I created this website.

FIRST - For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (http://www.usfirst.org) is a program designed by inventor Dean Kamen.  It is a competitive program for students of all levels, and encourages them to work side-by-side with mentors from their community. 

To read my introduction to FIRST and FIRST Objective, please follow this link to the tour (http://www.firstobjective.org/tour).  This will give you a brief introduction to FIRST and if you follow the tour, you will see how this website works.

I became fascinated with FIRST several years ago and finally became a mentor in January 2007.  Being a software engineer I know what it is like working to meet deadlines with a team, and the experiences these students go through are intense and only paralleled by what they'll face after college.

There are 4 essential ingredients to a FIRST team; teachers, students, sponsor and mentors.  I've singled out teachers on this page because they have the ability to inspire students to participate in this program.  An inspired group of teachers and students can always find sponsors and mentors (although it may seem difficult at times).

Please browse the forums and videos that are found on this website.  There are a lot of students that are members of this site, and many of them are posting their own videos to help me promote FIRST to you.  While reading the forums, take just a minute and introduce yourself and post a message in the Interested Teachers forum.  You do not need to become a member to post in the forums, however if you'd like to become a member, it's simple and free.  You'll then have access to more areas of FIRST Objective and will also get our newsletter.  I am privately funding this website, there are no sponsors or advertisers and you'll never get spam if you choose to become a member.  I have put a huge amount of my personal time into building this website simply because I feel that this is that important.

If you wish that we could do more to encourage students to study science, technology and mathematics, then this is the program for your school.  I can guarantee that someday every school will have a FIRST team, and when that happens you will be wondering why you didn't get involved sooner.

Take a few minutes to view these YouTube videos I've specifically selected for you.