Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1083315
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2019 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 43 which is a global event that takes place in New Haven, Connecticut, where FIRST was founded. The announcement usually airs on a Twitch.tv stream, and everyone watches it. Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers are the two founders of FIRST. Their mission is to push gracious professionalism through competition and cooperation and teams working together even though they're in a competitive environ- ment. Matties: How long have you been involved with FIRST? McGalliard: I've been involved for three years since I'm a junior. I started as I was a fresh- man, and I'm actually one of the founding members of our team. My team basically started with just about 10 people. We rushed through to the registration process because our teacher explained how we had to register right away before the deadline. We registered in time and started without having much of an understanding of what we were doing, but we built our first robot. The competition that we did the first year was called FIRST STEAMworks. Basically, we had to build our robot within six weeks to be able to launch little whiffle balls into this thing called "the boiler." It was a six-foot apparatus with a hole on the top, and you had to be able to launch balls in it to give you points. We also had to be able to carry and deposit gears to what they called "an airship." There was a sys- tem where a human operator could pull up the gears, grab them, and put them into a system where they would eventually fill up with gears, and you would rotate them, which would get your "rotor" going. Matties: In the three years that you've been involved, what has inspired you the most or what have you learned the most from this? McGalliard: What I've learned the most from is not just the perseverance on the engineering side but also how to write a grant and how to present myself well in front of other people as the business head. I've had that experience before, but being able to do that in a truly pro- fessional environment inspired me since we need sponsorships and grants—things you