WE FIRST is based out of Western Engineering at Western University. Their ultimate goal is to provide high school students with tools to build and program robots, but also to provide other skills like coding, public speaking, business sense, and teamwork.
Rahma Syde is the president of WE FIRST and she says there’s no need to have experience to join the program, “The neat thing about the program is that is an introduction for most of the student. I feels good when people look and said ‘oh this high school student build a robot in 6 weeks?!’ but the thing is that most of the students had never touched a circuit, or anything electrical or mechanical before.”
They recently hosted a LEGO tournament for student from grade 4 to 8.
Jethro Kwon is one of the mentors in WE FIRST, and explained how that tournament worked: “They have two minutes and thirty seconds to build robots with legos of this special kit, and then they have to complete this missions. For example, they will have to build a robot to pick a loop, or push a button.”
Megan Mackay is also a mentor and invited people to join the group. She said “We are happy to provide student with the tools to be part of the robotics world, and if they later want to pursue a career in STEAM fields, we are also happy to do that, because this world is going in that direction, and the skills you learn in the program stick with you for the rest of your life.”
This world is constantly growing, constantly evolving, constantly shifting to be a more technological world. Students or anyone can be part of building the future of our society, even if it is one robot at the time.
