UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

I have been watching a plethora of YouTube videos lately that are showcase and reveal videos that are posted by many teams at the end of build season. There are videos of good robots, not so good robots, and some absolutely incredible robots! The topic I want to discuss is the amount of ungracious and unprofessional comments left by some FIRST participants accusing these incredibly hard working and productive teams of having robots that are mostly built by corporate sponsors, or robots that are barely built by students. These comments are extremely negative, uninspiring, and most of all, ignorant. When I look at a team with a well built, beautiful robot, like Team 254 or Team 118 (Winners of SVR 2013 by the way, congrats!) I can only be inspired at how they are doing FIRST right!

The reason I say that these type of teams are doing FIRST right, is because they work with sponsors and engineers so much that it is an integral part of how their team is run. What is interesting as well is how these high performance teams usually have a huge number of students, and they are being accused that their students don't do enough or even anything, which is highly illogical. I'd hate to say that FRC teams that work within their high school which lack a decent amount of engineer mentors who work in the industry and are forced to make robots that are completely student built (Team 701 is guilty of that) are not doing FIRST right, but they really aren't. FIRST was originally started so students were not limited to the resources of their schools or parents. They are ideally supposed to be teams that are formed with students who may be from different schools who work with an industry partner and can work in that partner's facilities and use that partner's resources. I find it a huge issue that some people in FIRST now think that this type of partnership is "cheating," "unfair," or "too easy." I want these people to know that this type of attitude is not in the spirit of FIRST, and is completely ignorant, because what they consider "cheating" is how an FRC team should work. Team 701 has been running for 13 years now without the industry resources such as engineer mentors or large amounts of expensive professional machinery, and by seeing these high performance teams I wish we could do FIRST right.

This year, some FIRST participants have assumed that our 2013 robot isn't made by students because of how well built and aesthetically pleasing it is, when it actually is 100% built by our students, aside from powder coating, which isn't actually part of the building. The only thing our few mentors actually do is supervise, teach, and give advice. I get how stupid these kinds of comments can actually be now. I actually find it a compliment that a 100% student built robot can be mistaken for an industry built robot. A 100% student built robot is a great thing, but it certainly isn't something to brag about.

The whole point is, that I want all FIRST participants to understand that it is normal and should be praised that a team can work with an industry partner to construct a phenomenal robot, and if they aren't working with industries, they haven't done FIRST right just yet. They should feel inspired by high performance teams to do better, rather than being envious and making ignorant and incorrect statements. I think that a team of students can fully take advantage of the FIRST experience if they do work with industries. I wish my team did that, and I know that if Team 701 did, and if more teams did as well, we would have more exciting and competitive events, and students that are even more inspired and passionate than they are already.

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

Are the comments on Chiefdelphi or on Youtube?

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

At Bridgewater our team had a run in with 2 teams who i will not mention. One is one team would walk by our robot and laugh at it. The other team while we were waiting for our next match, we overheard them say to attempt to give us a foul because we were taller than 84" in our autozone attempting to block the full court shooter. That is just not in the spirit of FIRST and not right. being the better team they were in need of a dremel so we offered it to them and when we did they didn't even say thanks, but we knew we were the better team

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

Any advice on how to limit reactions like this within a team?

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

Like I mentioned, It's mainly YouTube comments that made me bring up this topic

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

Are you talking about reactions such as students complaining about another better performing team or making assumptions that they can't even be sure are actually right?

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

This topic pops often. Here is a big thread on it. It all depends on the goals of a team. Some prioritize winning, others inspiring, and others the students learning and running their own team. There isn't a right or wrong choice here, but many people have very strong opinions about it. I have my own, but I'd rather not beat a dead horse.

Libby Kamen says it well:

Keep it civil here.

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

YouTube comments? YouTube comments are dumb regardless of the subject. Don't take them to mean anything.

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

Youtube is a notorious cesspool of ill-behavior.
They think that being anonymous gives them the right to say whatever suits them and there is little to no moderator control (they are more concerned about copyrights then offensive comments). I have no answer for you about what to do about the comment except to simply rise above it.

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

Both. If you are better than us, you must have your mentors build your bot.

Curious what teams do to discourage these counter-productive notions throughout a team.

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

1. Rise above the hate
2. Ignore obnoxious cesspool that is YouTube
3. Go to championships
4. Keep running your team as well as you currently are, but recognize room for improvements.
5. Make improvements
6. ???
7. PROFIT (or inspire; this is a non-profit organization)

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

I definitely want to keep it civil. I dislike internet arguments just like anyone else. It is my opinion that teams should be partners with industries, but it's not a strong enough opinion that I would get uncivil about. And I think that if teams do this, they don't have to prioritize at all and can be everything you mentioned. They can be a winning, inspiring team that is run by students, yet assisted by professionals, so new knowledge can be gained, instead of having older students teach new students what they know and perpetuating their knowledge yet hardly progressing it, whereas new mentors can always bring new ideas from what they have been trained and educated in.

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

Exactly, Youtube videos not limited to FIRST videos all have very rude comments on them. Youtube comments are just people sitting behind a computer trolling. You can thumbs down them to try to help the problem.

If I was a team receiving hateful comments like that I would go the route that 148 has, and just making videos uncommentable, but that's just me. That being said, a majority of the comments on 118 video do defend them, and attack others who are posting things described in the OP.

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

I know YouTube comments are dumb in general, but I'm talking about comments left by participators of FIRST on other FIRST teams' media, who I would expect to leave more intelligent comments and represent this organization better.

Re: UNgracious UNprofessionalism
 

I try to make my students understand that what they say can make an affect on people, and I am trying to make my team just like the high performance teams that are both praised and sometimes ridiculed, so they have to keep in mind, that if they want to say ill-informed things about a team, they shouldn't because the team you are insulting now, may be the kind of team we have in the future.