Senior Clara Slade joined robotics when she was a junior, not realizing the opportunities it could provide. Now as a captain, she’s applying to college and grateful for the experience.

Slade said joining For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) robotics can lead to scholarship opportunities through the organization itself and specific schools.

“This is a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) program and especially girls, you’re really likely to get a scholarship through something like this,” Slade said. “For example, the University of Minnesota specifically asks if you’re part of FIRST robotics.”

FIRST runs programs for all ages, including the First Robotics Competition for high school students.

Team adviser Trevor Paulson said there are scholarships inside FIRST. When applying to certain schools, like the University of Minnesota, the scholarship forms have a box to check off for members of the FIRST organization.

“There’s a ton inside the program, and I hope you’d join for those reasons, but a nice additive would be scholarships,” Paulson said.

According to sophomore member George Hare, there are a lot of other reasons to consider joining. He said robotics expands not only skills in STEM fields, but also working in business, working with adults and leading people.

“The team functions business-side wise, very much like a small business,” Hare said. “So if you’re interested in running a small business eventually or if you’re interested in learning leadership, leading teams, that sort of thing, first robotics provides a lot of good opportunities for those as well.”

Mr. Paulson said there’s a lot of different pieces to the team beyond the programming, building and engineering.

“There’s public relations, there’s the business side of it, trying to figure out how to find sponsors, control the money,” He said. There’s also the graphic design aspect of designing the robot, and creating team ‘swag’ like stickers and buttons that are handed out at competitions.

First robotics is a way to learn more about engineering but there is pretty much a spot for anyone, senior captain Paul Friederichsen said.

“Even if you’re not interested in joining for technical reasons like programming or building robots, there are tons of other jobs,” Friederichsen said. “Pretty much anyone can do something here.”