Team 1501

Note: Team 1501 and the mentors there were instrumental in facilitating Nathan’s love for robotics and engineering. Nathan was so grateful to all of the mentors who invested time, teaching and encouraging him. In his years after 1501, Nathan’s greatest joy was to teach others. 

From Nathan’s Foxytronics website in the “about me” section.  

My freshman year of high school I became interested in video game development and purchased a license to Conitech’s 3D Gamestudio engine. After spending several months learning the engine’s scripting language and acquiring basic programming skills, I realized the engine had severe limitations that hindered my learning. After researching many alternatives, I concluded the Torque Game Engine was best option.

Learning Torquescript – a scripting language somewhat derived from C++ – proved to be a great stepping stone from 3D Gamestudio’s basic scripting language to slightly more challenging programming. I worked on many projects using Torque, and although I never releasing a full-featured game I was constantly learning and having a lot of fun in the process. My plans for becoming a games developer tycoon were foiled, however, when a friend invited me to join a local robotics club.

After attending a few meetings, I quickly joined FIRST team 1501 (http://www.huntingtonrobotics.org) as a programmer. Before joining the FIRST robotics team, I really had no idea what “engineering” was and thought “robots” were – for the most part, at least – science fiction fantasies. My perspective on these things changed quickly! During my time on team 1501 – over a period of two years – I was a programmer, webmaster, robot driver, and student vice president. Occasionally, I helped out with electronics.

Being on the robotics team was an incredible learning experience. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to work side-by-side with professional engineers, an experience which strongly influenced my decision to study engineering. Spending time with engineers taught me invaluable lessons, such as learning how to work as part of a team on difficult projects with time limitations. I can’t thank the mentors and students on team 1501 enough for the valuable, life-changing experience I gained while working with them.

My time in the FIRST robotics competition instilled a strong desire in me to learn more about science and technology, which is hopefully something that will stick with me the rest of my life.

 

 

Pictures from Nathan’s time on Team 1501.