User:MrP

Name: Peter Pirozzo

Number of years with the team: 11 Years

What is your favorite robotics memory?: Working with my two sons when they were on the team.

What or who got you involved? When my oldest son Joseph was a senior he joined the team during its charter year. I so enjoyed working with him and his friends, I decided to stick with it, even after he graduated. Prior to our charter year in US FIRST, I worked with the kids and Mr. Gibson helping out the Physics Club. We worked with very simple robots that consisted of old toys which were controlled by a battery pack at the end of a 10 foot cable. This was the predecessor to what is now the OCCRA competition.

Where did you graduate from? Catholic Central HS in Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids JC, Michigan State University and Oakland University

Where do you work today and what do you do? I work for a defense contractor called Control Point Corporation. During my career I once had the opportunity to work on an armored military vehicle that weighed several tons. It was capable of following road edges in an autonomous mode using cameras to guide it. The vehicle also could be tele-operated from a semi-trailer several miles away. All of this cost huge amounts of money and took a team of engineers many person-years to implement. When I compare that to what a single US-FIRST team accomplishes in 6 weeks, I am totally amaized at where technology and the education system has taken us in the last 25 years. Can you imagin where we could be in another 25 years?

Interests and hobbies: Robotics (of course), remote control aircraft (but no onboard AI yet) and water gardens.

One message for future FIRST students: Your future is only limited by your ability to dream and your drive to realize those dreams.