For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology
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| Founded | 1989 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Dean Kamen |
| Type | 501(c)(3) not-for-profit public charity |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 42°59′22″N 71°28′04″W / 42.9895°N 71.4677°W |
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Members
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400,000+ students 34,000+ robots 90,000+ mentors 38,700+ teams 90,000+event volunteers |
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Key people
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Dean Kamen, Founder Walt Havenstein, Chairman of the Board Don Bossi, President Woodie Flowers, National Adviser |
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Revenue
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$50,461,022 |
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Employees
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135 (in 2013) |
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Volunteers
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120,000 |
| Slogan | "To create a world where science and technology are celebrated... where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes" |
| Website | www |
For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) is an international youth organization that operates the FIRST Robotics Competition, FIRST LEGO League, FIRST LEGO League Jr., and FIRST Tech Challenge competitions. Founded by Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers in 1989, its expressed goal is to develop ways to inspire students in engineering and technology fields. Its philosophy is expressed by the organization as coopertition and gracious professionalism. FIRST also operates FIRST Place, a research facility at FIRST headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire, where it holds educational programs and day camps for students and teachers.
FIRST operates as a non-profit public charity corporation. It licenses qualified teams, usually affiliated with schools or other youth organizations, to participate in its competitions. The teams in turn pay a fee to FIRST; these fees, the majority of which are redistributed to pay for teams' kit of parts and other services, consist of the majority of FIRST's revenue.
The supreme body of FIRST is its board of directors, which includes corporate executives and former government officials. FIRST also has an executive advisory board and several senior advisors; these advisors include engineers, involved volunteers, and other senior organizers. Day-to-day operations are run by a senior management team, consisting of a president and five vice presidents.
The first and highest-scale program developed through FIRST is the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), which is designed to inspire high school students to become engineers by giving them real world experience working with engineers to develop a robot. The inaugural FIRST Robotics Competition was held in 1992 in the Manchester Memorial High School gymnasium. As of 2009[update], over 3,000 high school teams totaling over 46,000 students from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Turkey, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, and more compete in the annual competition.
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Wikipedia