Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

I would argue that when speakers say everyone's a winner, it's encouragement that everyone is on the right track to being "successful" -- based on the content of the speeches at FIRST events, I would argue that that would be to do something good or beneficial for the world.

One of the reasons we put so much focus on winning is to teach the same life skills that sports teach -- you're fighting tooth and nail while working hand-in-hand with others to achieve a goal, whatever it might be. Like everything else, being able to do that is a skill, and learning how to assess your situation and make the strategic choices and actions to put yourself in an optimum position to achieve whatever your goal is.

At the end of the day, if you did everything you possibly could to achieve your goal, you can feel self-assured and know that you did your best. Not everyone is motivated by trying to be the best at something--many people are motivated to produce something new or interesting. From my standpoint, I hope the students graduate motivated to do something, having experienced the type of effort required to accomplish a difficult challenge.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

In my opinion, winners are everyone that gets to run down to the field and high five the judges for one reason or another. Teams that qualify for additional events via merit (regional or world championships) are also winners.

I think I count a lot more winners than some other people do.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

Perhaps just repeating my earlier post in pithier form, but there are two different definitions of "win" at work here:

1. To be recognized as the best competitor at something at a given place and time.
2. To conclude an endeavor in better condition than you started.

Without a doubt, win[1] is much more inspirational than win[2], and unless FIRST decides to play Red Rover, there are a limited number of winners at each event.

That said, win[2] is why FIRST exists. If being world class were essential to the FIRST model, we would quickly be down to a handful of teams, inspiring a few hundred STEM heroes. FIRST exists to inspire tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of STEM leaders.

Finally, to be clear - I am NOT intending to contradict Mike Corsetto, nor to depreciate being world class. The Citrus Circuits and other world-class competitive teams inspire members of other teams (including 3946) in addition to their own.

Occasionally world-class team inspiration crosses into disturbing territory; at this point I'll bow out on the principle of "what's said in the workshop stays in the workshop," unless it's suitable for the Quotes thread. Polyandry was just meant as a figure of speech, right?

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

I agree that there are three "Winners" at an event now respectfully, lots of teams put a lot of work into awards such as Chairman's or Engineering Inspiration. Teams like 2169, 1816, 4607, 2052, 2502, 2526, 3184, and many others here in Minnesota that have put lots of time and effort into building and reinforcing the goals of FIRST, and have been awarded with awards like Chairman's and Engineering Inspiration, in my opinion are held at the same level at the "Winners" of the actual event.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

I'm not going to reply directly to anything already said. Just want to say this.

I was very fortunate to be able to watch a team win at the 10,000 lakes regional. It wasn't 2052 or 525 (although they also won). It didn't even happen at an awards ceremony. It was team 2855, students whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for a few years. On Friday, I realized that they were going to be an alliance captain, so I talked to them, and pointed them in the direction of some scouting resources.
Sure enough, they walk out as the 8th seed captain right towards the end, only to be immediately picked by the 7th seed. Together, they picked an effective 3rd partner and a strong alliance.
Unfortunately, the 2nd seed was no slouch. I watched them lose their first quarterfinal from the pits. At that point, a few of them thought that they were just done. They hadn't been involved in Elims enough to remember that they got a 2nd match. And they had certainly never had a strong shot at anything more than Quarterfinals.
However, they had done their research well. Match 2 was a different story, and they pulled out a win. Right then, I got to watch them have the realization that it was possible for them to win. Maybe not this year, but next year for sure. Even though they lost their next match (by 8 points, really close), they were all eager for the future.
I am very glad that they managed to pick up the Entrepreneurship award, and a trip to state that day, but the truth is, they still won, regardless of whether or not they received a prize for it. It is possible to "lose" a robotics competition, but "winning" does not always come with a prize. Defining it so narrowly risks missing out on all of the victories that take place in FRC.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

I mentor a robotics team for a league that is not related to FIRST.

I've always been bothered by the "everyone's a winner" philosophy. Competitions (robotics, and sports for that matter) should be a life lesson. In life some times you don't win. Some times you fail because you weren't good enough, made too many mistakes, or just had bad luck. "Everyone's a winner" misses this important lesson.

On the other hand, if you define winning too narrowly, then some teams, and people, would always be losers. I don't believe that's reality either. Everyone can be a winner, and probably will be at some point.

For my team, we focus on creating a positive experience for the students. Bringing home a trophy helps, but if the kids graduate inspired for the future and are determined to do well, then we have "won" regardless of the scorecard.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

This makes an important distinction between prizes and winning. Getting a prize obviously means you have won but it means that that person or team has done something special, something that no one else has done or done as well, and so they get an award. However, giving everyone an award can be detrimental to both teams because the team who should have won an award feels cheated and the team who wasn't yet at the level of an award can't learn from that experience.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

Or, how about this:

Not everyone will go home a "winner". Not everyone will get a prize. But nobody loses at a FIRST robotics competition.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

I feel pretty inspired when I win.

Re: Everyone's A Winner?
 

No one is saying that winning isn't inspirational. But winning isn't the only way that people can be inspired. It certainly helps expedite the process, but it's certainly not the only way to graduate the program and feel you got something out of it other than a superficial "You participated, good for you!" pat on the back.