Port St. Lucie, Fla. — For as long as he can remember, Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) Lead Project Manager Richard Worthy had the characteristics of an engineer hardwired into his DNA.

“I’m a tinkerer,” he admits. “I like fixing things, repairing things. As a kid I always built bridges, repaired bicycles.”

A Miami native, Worthy traveled to New Hampshire for college, where he joined the local robotics team and took his first step into the world of engineering.

“We built this robot called Archimedes,” Worthy said about his creation, aptly named after the historical mathematician. “We took that robot down to Orlando for one of the FIRST^® championship games … we won the ‘most creative’ award.”

Founded in 1989, FIRST – which means “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” – was created to prepare young people for the future through a suite of inclusive, team-based robotics programs. They emphasize friendly sportsmanship, respect for the contributions of others, teamwork, learning and community involvement. FPL has been supporting FIRST Robotics for more than 10 years through services, equipment and professional mentors like Worthy.

In a typical robotics competition, teams receive a simple task and are scored in two categories: Can the robot perform the task autonomously? And can it perform the same task manually? For example, Worthy’s team was challenged to transfer a yoga ball in and out of an oversized net made of bungie cords. The matchup is designed to test programming skills and manual dexterity.

Archimedes had a unique trick up its metallic sleeve.

While teams were preoccupied with getting their robots to place the balls into the overhead net, Archimedes was designed to also remove competing team’s balls through the bungie net horizontally, cutting down their leads.

“If you put in five balls and I had three, we would go take two of yours out,” he says with a sly smirk. “We went on to win that match. No one had that plan but us.”

Worthy has a fiery competitor spirit, which you might expect from the former football player. After college he joined the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program, where he credits his Big Brother, a mechanical engineer, for igniting his STEM passion into a full-fledged career path.

“My ‘Big’ took me to his shops and gave me a passion for engineering,” he says. “I love working with engineering, but I also love doing it in my spare time with young kids in the community and it was a fun experience.”

This is when Worthy decided to go all-in with FIRST^® robotics. He began mentoring young teams with the knowledge he had gained from his time in competitions like the one with Archimedes in Orlando, and his day job at FPL. He joined the company in 2008 as a senior engineer in Florida. Today, Worthy oversees the planning, execution and completion of projects related to energy production at FPL power plants.

“I think the reason kids love this competition is it’s set up like a big football game,” he says. “But the participants are coders, introverts … bright kids that may not play football or team sports, but they still want that team competition that FIRST allows you to do.”

Since becoming a judge in these competitions, Worthy says the evolution he’s seen in FIRST robotics and the students has been phenomenal. During the recent FIRST South Florida competition, FPL hosted the “Robot Urgent Care,” which provides students essential resources to repair their robots after each scrimmage, enabling them to continue competing effectively.

“Where it started to where it is now is amazing – it’s light years ahead. These robots are so fast. The students are making their own parts – we didn’t make our own parts back then,” he says.

FIRST Robotics will always have a special place in Worthy’s heart. With a large smile, he says he’s fortunate a company like FPL allows him to pay it forward to the next generation of innovative thinkers who want to get into STEM engineering programs.

“FPL gives you time to go out into the community and represent the company,” he says. “When I grew up, I didn’t see a lot of engineers, I didn’t see a lot of FPL employees. If I would have seen someone like me come in to my high school, I might have focused a little bit more.”

Volunteering with FIRST also exposes students to the opportunities of working at a company like FPL.

“These kids get to know what we do,” he adds. “They get to learn about renewable energy, they get to know about transmission lines, they get to know about how power is made … it’s because of the employees and the ability to go out and share that message, it’s been really good.”

As the program evolves and gets more competitive, Worthy says being in that atmosphere around these students makes him feel like a kid again.

“As a judge I get to participate, give them wisdom, give them information that I’ve learned over the course of my career,” he says. “Some of these kids are doing things I didn’t learn in university. It keeps me young; it lets me know that this country is going to be ok because the youth is really sharp.”

In between his job at FPL and judging at FIRST competitions, Worthy mentors the “SPAM” robotics team in Port St. Lucie. SPAM stands for Speed, Power and Maneuverability and is made up of three high schools in Martin County including Southfork High School, Martin County High School and Jensen Beach High School. They scored a top five finish in the most recent FIRST Nationals competition in Houston, which attracted more than 1,500 students from around the world.

“They’ve been at it for quite some time and they’re just phenomenal,” he says proudly. “This is one place where it’s everything a parent would want their child to do in a program outside of school.”

Worthy has no plans to stop anytime soon. He hopes to continue mentoring young minds interested in robotics and STEM, guiding them to future careers some never thought possible.