The programs we support establish a bridge between colleges, high school, and professional engineering communities. The programs we support provide a hands-on learning experience by asking students to solve challenging problems, building and programming robots, while being mentored by technical professionals. It's clear that if students are to succeed in this challenge, they will need appropriate tools and instruction.

It is my firm belief that experience based learning programs, directed at science and technology, are an effective means to fill the lagging pipeline of college graduates in the engineering, math, science and technology fields. My six years of involvement in FIRST has borne this out. I have seen many students who were not interested in engineering turn to this field in their college studies as a result of their experience in FIRST. I am a working Physicist, and have spent the past 6 years working with two FIRST teams in the Danville area. As a result of my experience with these teams, I decided help the WRRF make this type of learning experience available to more students in the San Francisco bay area, and more broadly around the country.

I'm sure that by working together, we can nurture and grow experience-based learning programs that will benefit both education and industry, and the community at large. I am looking forward to working with you to further this goal.

Sincerely,

Eugene Brooks
President,
Western Region Robotics Forum, Inc.
eu ene d brooks iii@gmail.com (t a k e out s p a c e s)