If you have never participated in a FIRST event, whether it be a student, mentor, volunteer or spectator, it might be hard to believe that one of the hardest jobs is emcee. Even for an event the size of this regional, it requires two emcees to make it work. We spoke with Dr. Smash, one of the two voicing the event.
Dr. Smash, in addition to her duties at this event, is also the mascot of her FIRST Robotics Competition team, 2152 SMASH. She is making her appearance at the event from Daytona Beach, Florida, which is about 2 hours from the competition. This is actually not an unusual scenario, as volunteers that are very dedicated to the program can drive across Florida every weekend for competitions of all of the programs. Dr. Smash has been volunteering with FIRST for the last 9 years, and cannot count how many competitions she has volunteered at.
She continued to volunteer because she simply loves to see the students happy, and to give the parents an opportunity to have a safe place for the kids to play and learn. She also enjoys being in the emcee seat, hearing from the students all day long. One of her favorite moments ties both of these together, seeing the students excited to see her when she attends an event.
Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.
Daniele is a student at Florida Polytechnic University who is studying Computer Science with a concentration in Cyber Security. In High School, she was introduced to the science and technology world through the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), a robotics foundation where students of varying ages can compete through tasks that their robots perform. With help from mentors she met through FIRST, she became interested in programming and developing. Today, Daniele is a special events host for F5 Live: Refreshing Technology and PLuGHiTz Live Special Events and a co-host for both The New Product Launchpad and FIRST Looks.
