Science Super-Stars

by Josh Rigberg

In 1989, Dean Kamen made one of his greatest inventions, and it wasn’t a portable medical devise, or even the much anticipated "IT." He introduced high school students to robotics through an exciting six week competition. It had been a new goal that Dean had set for himself: to create an exciting opportunity for kids and engineers to work together on something that would inspire young people to pursue further education in science and technology.

"The consequences of being the fifth best, or the fourth best, or the third best dribbler in the country is that you can make a million dollars playing basketball. The consequences of being the tenth best is not so great when there are only five people on a team. At eighteen, if you are the tenth or hundredth or thousandth best, you are unemployable," Dean Kamen told this reporter at the FIRST Competition at Columbia University earlier this Spring.

Dean started US FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) to help kids to cultivate an interest in engineering. He saw this great desire in all kids to become sports heroes, but didn’t see any of that desire expressed in much-needed areas of science and technology. Last year, 1.8 million jobs went unfilled in this area alone because companies didn’t have enough people who were qualified in engineering. FIRST is trying to fill that void by helping to develop more capable kids who are excited about this field.

There has been a major decline in the interest of science and technology by young Americans. Kamen feels that money is not the issue. Each year, six billion dollars goes towards public education. "The supply is there," he contends, "but there isn’t enough demand. Kids do better at things they are passionate about, but they don’t just wake up and say they want to be an engineer. They want to be the next Michael Jordan. We have a society that is very good at creating heroes and celebrities and creating demand. Everyone knows who Mickey Mouse, Michael Jordan and Ronald McDonald are. There needs to be something to make kids want to be interested in becoming engineers. Right now, they believe it’s a field for either old white middle aged, German-accented, sociopathic guys in white lab coats who are intent on destroying the world with some ridiculous scheme, or men working in factories welding stuff. If kids could only interact and meet some of these engineers, they could better understand that they are really cool people," Kamen stated passionately.

Left to right: Josh Rigberg, inventor Dean Kamen and James Yin

Dean Kamen autographs a fan’s T-shirt