Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

For our team and what I also believe individually, is that you only lose if you didn't give it your all. If we lose because the other alliance was just better than us or just wasn't our day then we can be proud of our accomplishments. If we lose because of a lack of trying or caring throughout the season though, that's when we are really losers. Loosing every now and again is okay too. It's what can kick start a team to becoming winners down the road.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

If you are number one in the individual district rankings, and another team was not, but won Chairman's and knocks you out of the top four, what about your hard work on your robot? That's why the two entities should be separate. Both are important, but separate.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

My statement goes for everything, not just the robot or even frc for that matter. If you give it your all at anything then you are a winner in my eyes. Yeah you might not be rewarded all the time but if a person or team sticks to the mentality of giving it their all, the rewards will arrive eventually.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

The quest for being competitive and winning are often confused and misunderstood. I want to challenge myself and my students to constantly strive for improvement. I don't actually care about Wins and Losses. We were ranked 3rd and were finalists at the Orange County Regional and for our team that was a HUGE win. We were so incredibly happy to have had our robot perform how it was designed and to be at a competitive level.

Much like in other sports a teams success on the field are directly linked to their work off of the field. Our team has made numerous changes and improved in several areas. To prepare myself for this year I read a leadership book and one of the things that stuck with me was the following story.http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/woo...nd-socks-84177. This article explains it in depth how legendary coach John Wooden started every basketball season by meeting with his team and teaching his players how to properly put on socks and shoes. He doesn't talk about winning championships he focusses on the small things that he can actually control. It is not as binary as winning and losing as there is an infinite level of success.

To conclude, "The robot is a vehicle". Ultimately the robot is a vehicle, not just for learning engineering but for learning life skills. Through First I have learned; how to lose, how to win, how to become a better person, how to lead, and so much more. I can't really remember the matches my teams have won or lost. I can't even remember the specifics of the regionals my team has won and lost. What I do remember is all of the connections this program has made for me and all of the opportunities that I have had because of it.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

John Wooden was a fantastic basketball coach. Here's how many wins he had in his career, taken from this article:

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

Winning a competition with your robot is not important.
Being a Chairman's team is.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

This thread really struck a raw nerve with me. I shadowed a team this weekend whose town has a median household income below the national poverty line, and $30,000 below the median household income of the state. They drove a broken bus 8 hours through the desert to get to the competition. My brother used to mentor a team whose students barely showed up because they were working 2 jobs after school to support their family. These teams didn't make the playoffs. Were they "losers?" Did they "not try hard enough?" Were they not "motivated?" Check your privilege. There are some people in this world for whom just showing up is a major victory.

I'm sorry if I'm being harsh, but for the past 20+ years Dean and Woodie have been giving speeches at FIRST events telling kids that just participating makes them winners. I don't think they've "devalued" the program or made it less competitive in that time (as if that's what FIRST is really all about), seeing as it's grown from a few dozen teams to a few thousand.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

1 alliance wins a given tournament but all teams teams have a chance to define, chart, and create their own success.

We would have loved to win all of our events this year but we have succeeded in growing as an organization by developing some really badass kids who want to sign the same blood oath to FIRST that I have.

Telling teams that win events that their accomplishments are not important is pretty disappointing. If that team defined success as scoring the blue banner that you get at the end of the bracket, and they achieved that goal, they should celebrate.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

The quest for being competitive and winning are often confused and misunderstood. I want to challenge myself and my students to constantly strive for improvement. I don't actually care about Wins and Losses. We were ranked 3rd and were finalists at the Orange County Regional and for our team that was a HUGE win. We were so incredibly happy to have had our robot perform how it was designed and to be at a competitive level.

Much like in other sports a teams success on the field are directly linked to their work off of the field. Our team has made numerous changes and improved in several areas. To prepare myself for this year I read a leadership book and one of the things that stuck with me was the following story.http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/woo...nd-socks-84177. This article explains it in depth how legendary coach John Wooden started every basketball season by meeting with his team and teaching his players how to properly put on socks and shoes. He doesn't talk about winning championships he focusses on the small things that he can actually control. It is not as binary as winning and losing as there is an infinite level of success.

To conclude, "The robot is a vehicle". Ultimately the robot is a vehicle, not just for learning engineering but for learning life skills. Through First I have learned; how to lose, how to win, how to become a better person, how to lead, and so much more. I can't really remember the matches my teams have won or lost. I can't even remember the specifics of the regionals my team has won and lost. What I do remember is all of the connections this program has made for me and all of the opportunities that I have had because of it.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

I'm sure teams like that do not have as many sponsors. Is there a scholarship program for them so that they would be able to do more than just show up?

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

Then why do you have the kids from your team build robots?

If it isn't important, just have them focus on Chairman's during build season.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

Building a robot is a 6 week job.
Building a winning Chairman's Team is a multi-year long endeavor.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

I dont get the point of your post; and if you think building a robot is January-Mid/End February, then you arent preparing your kids.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

I heard someone say recently that FRC is not a robotics competition, it is "life experience" that involves robots.

It's an engineering competition. And a very realistic one, because it takes into account not just the technological merit of your solution, but other factors such as funding, marketing, branding, politics between competitors, and other factors beyond your control such as pure luck. Which is how the real world works. You might not win it big. But that shouldn't prevent you from trying anyway.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

Threads like this is exactly why I tend to stay off of Chief Delphi. I find it ironic that this post was started by someone who is on a team that is going to World's based on the fact that two of the teams on the winning alliance technically won too many awards therefore creating some Wildcards and allowing other teams to go to Worlds. Maybe you felt like your team won too many awards this past weekend?

This is my second year as a mentor and one of the things that I've learned in the past two years is that every team comes from different backgrounds and has access to different resources. You work with what you have available and do the best that you can. While the competition side of FIRST is fun, to me it much larger than that. When you can watch your kids get excited over building and competiting with something that they designed and built with the resources they have and have it then lead to a passion for engineering, science, and creativity that's what really matters. I don't know about you but that's what I saw a lot of this past weekend at the 10K Lakes Regional. Maybe that's what makes everybody a "winner"? If it is, I'll take that any day over a blue banner.

On a side note, while we didn't win any awards at two regionals we attended this year I am incredibly proud of my kids and wouldn't trade them for anyone else. Even if we weren't on the "winning" team.