Cassandra Robison has turned a passion for technology into a rewarding career at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), but that vocation was still a long way off back in 2008, when a teacher walked into her high school programming class with an opportunity to build robots. “None of us knew what we were getting into,” Robison said in a recent interview, but one thing quickly led to another. By the end of senior year, Robison’s teammates were driving from Niceville, Florida to their FIRST Robotics Competition regional event in New Orleans. FIRST, an abbreviation of “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,” is a not-for-profit organization that helps students around the world build industrial-sized robots that face off in competitive events.
“It was the same energy level as…
