Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/710139
August 2016 • SMT Magazine 69 INVESTING IN THE FUTURE OF OUR INDUSTRIES dents, their kids involved, and it's a nice way for a corporation to not just give back to the community, but also directly get their employ- ees and their students involved. They can also get involved at, of course, at the sponsorship level. They can help sponsor teams for simple things like registration all the way up to overall headquarter sponsorship. We've got a wonder- ful group of sponsors that span the range from technology companies, like the ones that you'd expect, Google and Apple, for example, to com- panies like Coca-Cola. We've got really a nice broad range of sponsors. It's not just technology companies. Matties: What's the goal of FIRST? Johnson: The goal of FIRST is to change the cul- ture to celebrate accomplishments of scientists and technologists and show that it's a fun, mean- ingful and accessible way to create a wonderful future for you as a student and really, to create the kind of behavior that we need to fix the real- ly big problems that are upon us. Not just from a technology standpoint, but also from a coopera- tion standpoint. That really is the goal of FIRST. It's no smaller than changing the world. Matties: That's a lofty goal and I can see by the kids' faces here that you're achieving that to a de- gree right now already. Wilker: They're our wonderful ambassadors. We have today, for example, on the FIRST Tech Challenge, an all-female rookie team who want- ed to come. They literally just registered, built a robot and came out. They're working with the Girl Scouts and some corporate sponsors. Matties: I saw that. It's great. Wilker: We also have teams here that compet- ed at the world championships. So some very high performing teams that have got their act together, and then we have everything else in between. In the FIRST LEGO League this af- ternoon, we have teams that basically decided that they love this program and they came back to share their robot and their project. Again, some more teams that just are wonderful am- bassadors. Talking with the kids really is how the program spreads. Word of mouth is the best medicine. It's really contagious. Matties: It's contagious for sure. These kids are excited. What about public schools? Are they em- bracing your programs? Are they incorporating this into their curriculum in any way? Johnson: They are. It's interesting. I know across the board, an average of 65% of our coaches are teachers. In what has really been a pull from the coaches' side to bring it into the classroom, we started FIRST as a STEM extension activity re- ally designed to be done outside the classroom, but with the high percentage of coaches that are teachers and the whole movement towards more project-based learning, which is perfectly aligned with Makers, that pull has really been strong in the last few years. We are working and do work with curricu- lum developers. We developed some curriculum ourselves. We also have a lot of early adopter teachers who have brought it into the classroom in a guerrilla style, bringing it in and using it to really augment the types of things that they're already teaching. Matties: That's great. Experiential learning is re- ally a lot of fun for these kids. Is there anything else that we should mention that we haven't talked about?