| Matthew DiCicco
FIRST Successes Lead Team Captain to Carnegie Mellon, MIT
Matthew DiCicco is a 1999 graduate of Mt.
Olive High School where he was a member of FIRST Robotics
Team #11 for two years, and elected team captain in his
senior year. In 2003, he graduated Summa Cum Laude from
Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
While Matthew was at Carnegie Mellon, he participated in
the university’s undergraduate honors research program.
In May, 2003, he placed first in the poster competition
at Carnegie Mellon’s annual “Meeting of the
Minds” Undergraduate Research Symposium for his project,
“A Muscle Controlled Orthotic Exoskeleton”.
After Carnegie Mellon, Matthew entered MIT on a full tuition
scholarship where he was a research assistant in the Field
and Space Robotics Lab, focusing on dynamics and controls,
specifically for robotics applications.
Matthew strongly believes that his experiences participating
on Mt. Olive’s FIRST Robotics team gave him an enormous
advantage in his engineering courses and research. FIRST
also taught him teamwork and professional cooperation –
important ingredients for success in today’s highly
technical workplace.
He shared with us the letter he wrote in 2000 describing
his FIRST experience and how it helped him in his college
career. Here are excerpts from his letter:
“…Problem solving is a much more important skill
to bestow upon high school graduates before they leave for
college. Unfortunately, problem solving is not easily taught,
it must be experienced, practiced and encouraged. The FIRST
Competition is perhaps the most effective and meaningful
problem solving experiences anyone can have at the high
school level. I would encourage anyone looking to promote
education in the areas of science and technology to look
no further.
At college, I have already used what I have learned from
my years in the FIRST Competition more than I can count….
There have been numerous instances where I, and other ex-FIRST
competitors, have said, “I can picture that, we did
something like that on our robot,” or, “No,
that won’t work, we tried something like that on our
robot and it didn’t work.”
… The praises for [the FIRST] program do not end with
purely technical skills. In the same way that high school
team sports promotes a sense of teamwork, excitement, accomplishment,
and pride in young athletes, the FIRST competition instills
the same values, plus a sense of professional cooperation.
… I personally am proud to have been a part of it
and look forward to future opportunities helping students
excel through participation in this program.”
Read the complete letter.
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