FIRST Robotics Competition at GRB connects this Texas family

Cheryl Choudhary and her high school son Ian made the trip this week for the FIRST Championship at George R. Brown Convention Center, the season-ending event for youth robotics that brings teams from across the world to Texas.

The FIRST Robotics Competition has been around for only three decades. But starting with Choudhary’s father back in the 1990s, three generations of their family have contributed differently to the organization.

“There’s a lot of pride in our family,” said Charles Price, Choudhary’s father.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is an international high school robotics competition run by FIRST, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing students through robotics. The organization started in 1989 and the Price/Choudhary family first got connected with it a few years later.

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The family legacy in FIRST can be traced back to Price, who worked for NASA for decades after he was hired in the 1960s. In the 1990s, NASA directed a group of people, including Price, to help promote and fund FIRST teams to get students to start competing. Price wrote a proposal to fund four teams in the Houston area at schools in Clear Creek, Friendswood, Pasadena and Houston. The funding helped spark the growth of FIRST in Texas.

By this time, Price’s children were past the age to be able to compete so Choudhary wasn’t able to participate herself. But Choudhary found her way back to the completion through her children.

Choudhary said her children grew interested in FIRST competitions on their own accord and not due to anybody in the family pushing them in that direction. Her daughter Rowan started competing first and then Ian followed suit soon after his sister.

Early on, Choudhary helped coach both Rowan and Ian in multiple FIRST competitions. There are multiple types of FIRST events: the Robotics Competition for high schoolers, the Tech Challenge for children in middle school and high school, and the Lego League for elementary and middle schoolers. 

Both children have had much success in the field. One of Rose’s high school teams won the then-named Chairman’s Award, which Choudhary said is the equivalent of being a Hall of Fame team. Ian, now a junior at Austin Vandegrift after the family moved to Austin a few years ago, is competing at worlds for the third straight year with his high school team. 

Price isn’t attending this year’s competition due to an upcoming knee surgery but the 83-year-old has been watching the competition on Twitch with his wife. He said his favorite part of the competitions is watching the students live out FIRST’s mantra of “gracious professionalism.”

“Fundamentally, you’ve got good manners,” Price said. “Fundamentally, you’re willing to help your opponent in the pits to get their machine ready to come out so you can compete with them or partner with.”

Choudhary admitted she hadn’t really thought about the fact her family had become, in a way. a three-generation robotics competition family until her sister brought it up a few weeks ago. 

She said there are lots of two-generation families out there but has no idea how many three-generation families there are in the landscape. She hopes to meet more of them, and expects to do so soon. Choudhary already sees former competitors coming back to mentors and the impact the competition is having on the lives of its participants, and impact that means even more to her considering her family’s ties to the competition.

“It’s such an amazing thing to see that and watch the program grow,” Choudhary said. “I’m so proud of my dad for being such a big part of that. I feel so privileged to be also be a part of that at a smaller scale. And I’m so happy that my kids have benefited from it and that have been able to personally witness so many kids benefitting from it too.”