Dean Of Invention: A wheelchair that climbs stairs? It’s just one product of Kamen’s idea factory.

You have teenagers thinking they’re going to make millions as NBA stars when that’s not realistic for even 1 percent of them. Becoming a scientist or engineer is.”

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“We celebrate the wrong things,” Kamen said.

The motivation for Kamen’s robotics competition was to provide students direct exposure to engineers and scientists while doing a project. With that, FIRST – For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology – has enlisted corporations to not only fund school teams but also to provide mentors and advisers so that students have direct exposure to engineers and scientists.

“FIRST is a wonderful sociological experiment that brings people together,” said Woodie Flowers, a mechanical engineering professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has helped support the competition since the beginning in 1990. And, as he points out, the most coveted prize, the Chairman’s Award, is given to the team that demonstrates the “most exemplary relationship between a team and a community.”

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