business backgrounder | education & workforce
Beyond the Bot
Washington FIRST Robotics program helps
build excitement for STEM careers.
Malia Jacobson
Washington’s FIRST Robotics is part of a national program that
introduces high school students to the possibility of a STEM career
by showing them it’s about more than just robot battles and LEGOS.
“I was more interested in the
business aspect of the team,
the organizational dynamics
and project management.
FIRST is about so much more
than just building a robot.”
When recent college graduate Marissa Birmingham joined the FIRST Robotics
team as a freshman at Tacoma’s Bellarmine high school, she wasn’t drawn
by a shiny robot or a chance to learn programming or engineering. She just
wanted to hang out with her friends. “I was a typical teenager and friends were
important to me,” says Birmingham, who earned a 2015 degree in engineering
— Marissa Birmingham, a recent
management from University of Portland. “I had some girlfriends in the club,
college graduate whose experience
so I gave it a try.”
with the FIRST program opened her eyes
Over the next four years of high school, Birmingham fell in love with FIRST
to the possibility of a STEM career
Robotics, logging hundreds of hours coordinating the team’s intense yearly
competitions. FIRST opened her eyes to the possibility of a career in a STEM (science,
technology, engineering and math) field, something she’d never considered.
Given her passion for FIRST Robotics programs — she’s currently an event volunteer
— people are often surprised to learn that she’s not that into robotics. “I was more
at a glance
interested in the business aspect of the team, the organizational dynamics and project
management,” she says. “FIRST is about so much more than just building a robot.”
FIRST program offerings begin at age
6, with Junior FIRST LEGO League for
kindergarten through third grade and
continue through grade 12
FIRST competitions focus on
collaboration and learning to work
side-by-side with teammates on
intense, real-world challenges, just
as they would do in a workplace.
Many FIRST clubs are school-based,
operated as an extracurricular club.
This year, 11,239 Washington
students were involved, comprising
nearly 1,000 teams. FIRST projects
growth of 36 percent by 2017.
Members of “Lord of the Gears,” a middle school FIRST Robotics team from Renton, show off
their LEGO creations at the 2015 AWB Manufacturing Summit.
42 association of washington business