Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

In many ways, FIRST is about taking risks, making mistakes, and learning lessons the hard way. What is the hardest non-engineering lesson that you learned this year? Feel free to elaborate on HOW you learned it if you want.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

That I'm not the best suited one for my job on my team anymore, and that's okay.

For the past 5 years I've been the head of our strategy team, and this year one of my alums came back as my junior mentor/mentor in training on the strategy team. Watching him work, I realized that he's better at this than me. This was a very difficult pill to swallow at first, as I felt that this meant that I was failing as a mentor. It's hard to admit that this strategy team that I built from nothing to what it is today has outgrown me, that there is a "new mentor on the block" that is better suited to lead the team into the future.

However over a long period of time (much longer than it should have taken) I have now realized that it's okay to hand off the torch to someone better suited for a job. It's part of life. I'm incredibly proud of him, and having watched him grow from his freshman year of high school to now has been absolutely amazing. I love him like a little brother, and I'll be honored to defer to his judgment in the years to come.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Considering that most of what I do for the team is non-engineering and the fact that I – like anyone else – make a lot of mistakes, I could go on and on about this question. I'll stick to only one to keep it short, however.

During the final week of the build season, I was bogged down with the need to film and edit a reveal video, a chairman's video, and the sixth episode of KnightVlogger. I accomplished the first two rather well, but the latter I made (what I considered) an executive decision to discontinue the series, although keep producing similar content. It made sense in my mind time-wise and quality-wise, I just didn't consult the opinions of anyone on the team which was a pretty bad blunder on my part. While I felt the backlash I received a little unwarranted, through good communication we were able to agree on what to do moving forward. We took the video down and restructured our YouTube channel plan, which I think was a tremendously better outcome than I had foreseen. We still need to upload an update on what changes and plans we have, but it's comforting to at least know what we plan to do moving forward.

That's the mistake and solution more or less, without getting into too many details. Basically, you can never have too much communication, so always share your concerns, ideas, and plans with others before making a final decision.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I learned that school takes priority over robotics.

I started off the year strong, but build season hit and I felt that I had to show up to as many practices as I possibly could (every day except Wednesday). I wasn't paying attention to my homework at all, so my grades started slipping, slipping, slipping until I was placed on academic probation. It sucked not being able to travel with the team. I hope to not make the same mistake next year, and I am trying to figure out how to fix it.


Btw, if anyone has school advice, I would love to hear it! :D

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I see this as quite the opposite. When the student surpasses the mentor who has put in so much time and effort, it means the mentor has achieved the goals of this program. I hope in time you can view your success in this way.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Don't stand in front of (or behind) a robot when it is enabled. (I was holding the Ethernet tether by the robot and the driver accidentally reversed into me. Don't worry, it had the bumpers on and was only about 1-1.5 feet away from me, so it didn't have time to accelerate and didn't hurt very much. Still. Be careful.)

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

To never take anything personally. The team didn't go with your design/idea/strategy/whatever? That's totally fine. I think learning to not take anything personally in a business and professional setting is a valuable lesson. It's not because the team is against you, and in fact you should embrace the fact that you're surrounded by people who are intelligent in that field, and can come up with amazing ideas.
This is something I learned when I was a student on 2085, and is one of my favorite life lessons.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Some of the most important lessons I've learned come from this thread I made in 2009. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=76907

Ignore the posts near the end - the thread went off on a tangent somehow

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

In my next paragraph I mentioned that my thinking has changed since then. It was a silly way of thinking on my part, I've just never had that moment where the student becomes the master and I didn't quite know how to feel about it. But I'm so incredibly proud of him and all the hard work he has put in this year.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

This is very wise insight and is one of the tenets of a little book called "The Four Agreements." Personally I have to re-learn this all the time. It is hard.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Some great lessons here.

For me I echo the comment someone made above that I'm not necessarily the best person for the (any) job, and I'm learning to embrace that.

I could, if needed, step into a variety of roles on my team, as a software mentor, business mentor, pit crew, and so on. Though I only have one prior year of FRC mentoring, I have lots of experience from a variety of past projects that would benefit the team. I've worked with students in other roles, I've helped run other non-profits, I've done marketing, fundraising, promotions, merchandise, websites, social media, video production.

"If needed" is the operative word. We have been lucky to have lots of mentors, parents, and students who want to step into these roles. It's tempting for me to want to inject my opinion on basically everything the team does that overlaps my skill set. I've had to remind myself that others are just as capable, if not more so, and to let them do their thing. It doesn't always end up looking exactly like how I'd envision it, but if the team is happy, then so am I! There's never just one right answer.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

The hardest personal lesson I learned this season...

I've never wanted to be a teacher. Both of my parents were teachers. They weren't miserable and both enjoyed what they did but I never wanted to be a teacher. I still don't want to be a teacher. To be clear, I have tons of respect for teachers and I think the world of anyone who gives up what they do. I just don't want to be one.

This was the year I learned that I am one. It turns out mentors are teachers. Oops.

What's more aggravating to me is that this is the year that I finally learned what I want to teach my students. I don't actually want to teach them about science or math. I don't care if they learn engineering skills from me. I learned this year that the thing I want to teach is almost impossible to teach someone. I want my students to learn passion. I want them to care so much about what they are doing that they infect other people with it... be that FRC or anything else.

So yeah... that's been an eye-opener for me this year.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

The hardest thing I learned this season is that things don't always go your way.

Our team this year was incredible and we built a very high-quality robot. I felt great about our performance as we placed very highly at our events preceding championships. While we were one of the best robots at our events we didn't win and only were finalists at one of our three events.

I hoped to go to championships and do fairly well. Unfortunately during our last match in semifinals, we lost communication and drove onto the alliance wall. This was an extremely unlucky way to lose a match that we were predicted to win. One of our seniors was very upset because he couldn't do anything in his last match driving. We also had some tough luck with refereeing, but in the end, we built a great robot and had lots of fun as a team. I learned that sometimes things just don't work out and are out of our control. I also learned that along with experience and a great robot it requires some luck to do well at competitions. It is important to understand this and move on and keep a positive attitude after things like this happen.

Later on during Einsteins we were cheering and finally had our spirits back. :]

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I've learned to not post on Cheif Delphi without checking all of my information first.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

If you spend too much time focusing on not getting what you want, you risk ignoring the times when you got what you needed.

We haven't achieved the victories we want as a program and I want as an alum and coach, but we have found success along the way.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

You know what, I take my previous lesson back. That was still an important lesson to me but it's not the most important.

The most important was a combination of what you've posted -- and a caveat. It's good to remember that we're not here to build robots. We're here to build students. The caveat is that it takes time, and not every student will get there at the same time, or even get there at all. And that's OK. Some change seems overnight. Others will take far longer. Our job is to be passionate. The rest isn't up to us.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

The hardest thing for me is learning that even if you put all your effort in you cant win everything

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I learned that I actually have the capacity to be a leader - I was offered the Lead queuing position at one of the district events and chose to take it. and then realized I was woefully unprepared for the part where I actually had to organize all of the Queuing at the event :v . The entire queuing team except for me were competely new to queuing too. Fortunately things ended up going smoothly, in no small part thanks to the rest of the team being very competent. It ended up being a lot of learning while doing, and a fun but difficult experience for me, something I look forward to doing again at some point. respect your volunteers kiddos, our jobs ain't easy ;)

also, it's really strange to me to be looked at as an authority figure by kids that could actually be as old as me :P

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I need to look at what I can realistically do and only do that.

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As a college mentor of my former team, one of the hardest things that I have had to learn to do is distance myself from my students and constantly remind myself that I am no longer on the team as a student and that I am now an "adult."

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

That overworking yourself is a huge problem, and some times you just need to back off and take a break. Also it's ok to relax and not worry about every little thing.

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I would say that the world isn't fair, and if you want to get something done, you better go and get it done and not sit around and wait for it to happen. Also people could easily ruin your season, and it's best to get those people out.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

The hardest lesson I learned is to back up and look at the big picture more often. Too many times we'd re-learn stuff the hard way rather than bring in prior experience that happened to be located elsewhere on the team.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I would like to echo these two posts. As a student I always put in no less than 200 hours over the 6 week build season. While I truly got a lot out of that time, I learned very quickly that I cannot continue that same intense dedication while trying to balance both college classes and work.

Although I am still friends with many of the current Seniors on my team, it's a difficult transition to make from student to mentor. As Kristin pointed out, I need to constantly remind myself that I'm no longer a student myself.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Don't bite off more than you can chew. After last year, we lost most of our CAD team. So, while retaining my roles with strategy and electrical, I took on the task of CADing much of the robot this year. It got done, but there were weeks where I would get ~20 hours of sleep, total. For me, FRC has always been a lot of fun, from start to finish. It has always made me happy, but it didn't this year, at least until I had a couple weeks away from it all, to sleep and to focus on other things. FIRST is inspiring. Sometimes, so inspiring that it sucks you in. The above story happened in parallel with having problems with my relationships, friends, and family. I was so buried in my work that I rarely talked to my friends or anyone else, and it took a toll on me and those around me. Much like many other people on CD, I love what I do. I love FRC, but, just like anyone else, I need people in my life in order to function. This is for any incoming FRC student- everyone says that academics comes first, but that's not the only thing. You come first. Know when you need to take a step back from it all, for your own health and happiness.

Side note: I also learned, don't cantilever things. Our robot was very saggy this year. If you ever saw us doing something to our shooter that looked like robot chiropractics, now you know why.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I can get really, really crabby when I'm running on fumes. I need to recognize it and keep my distance from the students if that happens.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Nobody is right all the time, especially me. I get really heated defending stuff that's just plain wrong.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

The hardest thing I've learned is that there isn't one "right" path for your future; what you expected may not be what you need.

I'm a junior and I've been on my team since I entered high school. I've always had a passion for STEM, especially after my mom took me to a FRC regional when I was 9. It didn't come as a surprise to many when I ran for a leadership position on the team for next season. After all, I worked hard all season and had a lot of experience with both electronics and programming - to the extent that when there were issues in the pit, I was called instead of a department head.

Unfortunately, I lost the election to someone with less passion and less experience on the team. I wasn't completely surprised since our election system kinda boils down to a popularity contest, but it definitely hurt.

Still, I know that I'm a valued member of the team and I still have as much respect as I did before; I don't need a title to know that. Our team plans to expand a lot next year by implementing CAD, and since I'm not tied down by leadership duties, I'll have a lot more wiggle room helming that initiative. I'll still be able to leave my mark on the team, even without a fancy position.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

This year, I learned a lot about how other teams work, both in our area and around the world, and it brought me a new rush of perspective. As a result, I came to the uncomfortable realization that my team is just not doing as great of a job as I thought it was in many areas, from teaching students to designing robots. To be clear, I'm still excited by what we're doing and proud of our accomplishments. But I had an idea in my mind of how comparatively successful we are, and it turns out that idea is unrealistic.

I'm continually inspired by how awesome other teams are, and I'm really trying to use this perspective positively to motivate improvement, but it's still hard to accept the fact that we're not as good I thought we were.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I learned that dealing with people is a lot harder than dealing with robots, and that I'd rather deal with the robots.:]

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Opportunities will not always arrive at the most convenient times, but you have to be ready to capitalize on them when they do.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I moved from making highlight reels and running AV setups at events to teaching people to do those jobs.

For highlight reels specifically, I problem was that I can't expect students to have all the knowledge I had when I was their age. I expected too much out of my volunteers because of how much I was able to do in the past. But I did manage to learn how to teach people the skills they needed to reach what I had done in the past. They learned enough to let me take a back seat and just work on other projects during DCMP, they are a great bunch of kids that I can't wait to work with again.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

One of the hardest lessons I learned was the importance of maintaining communication and appreciation in the team.

In the last few days of build season, the stress started piling on. Things were said, feelings were hurt, things were misheard and misinterpreted, people felt unimportant, mistakes were made, and some people almost walked out.

We realized as things started boiling over and worked hard to help improve the situation. We eventually went on to have our best season ever.

Even today, as happy as I am that my team made it to Einstein for the first time ever, I still sit and think about the things that have happened. Clear communication is important. Appreciation is even more so. Make sure you all take a moment to thank your team-mates for just being there. Don't let the heat of things make you forget that your team should be a family.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I learned that some teams are a better fit than others, and that's okay. It's hard to leave teams that you have invested time in, especially when you adore the students, but sometimes it's for the best.

Joining 1024 was one of the best choices that I made, and I'm grateful that they recruited me to help. The team I left isn't a bad team, they just weren't a good match for me.

I also learned that it's okay to sit back, and watch how a team works before jumping in to get fully involved.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

The hardest lesson for me on my team was to appreciate everything that everyone has done on the team for this season. I am apart of build/drive team and did not realize how much our marketing team has done for us. We had a group meeting before Worlds to tell everyone that we appreciate what they have done so far for the team. At the Asheville district event we had a rough start to competition but eventually we figured it out.

In all because of all of this that has happened I believe we have grown better as a team and we made it to Worlds because of it! :D

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I've learned to focus my energies into my spheres of influence.

These past two years have been frustrating for me. I've watched FIRST split the Championship. California continues to stall on Districts. Our 24 FLL teams in Davis are nearly unanimously ready to quit due to poor local event structure.

I've barked up all those trees and quickly found that my feedback/advice for improvement is either unwelcome or falling on deaf ears.

I only have so many hours in a day. I've decided to focus my time on the students I can impact through my mentorship of 1678 and local leadership in the Davis community.

We are running summer camps based around Vex IQ to smooth out the transition to Vex IQ in the fall.

I've dropped off the local RPC, in favor of helping organize a local off-season FRC competition.

While it is hard to realize your feedback is not valued, it doesn't seem so hard when there are so many other groups and organizations that welcome your energy, experience and enthusiasm.

-Mike

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

A thing I've learned every season is that I cannot do everything, nor can I be everywhere at once. Nobody can, so there's no reason I should expect myself to. It's not bad that I have to keep remembering that. It's just a process.

I've also finally learned how to prioritize school over FIRST. Next school year, I'll finally be in a state where I can mentor a team if I so choose and balance my schoolwork.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

For me personally it was learning how to step back from my leadership in electrical and let my little ducklings learn how to do things hands on.

stepping back especially in your senior year is a difficult thing. Lets be real its your last year and you want to do everything and make the most of it. The look of confidence on the younger one`s faces when they realized they do know what they`re doing is priceless. i found It was much more rewarding to help develop the passion for STEM in another person over the season.

seeing someone else do the work that you would normally be doing is hard at times and there were times where i was sad and i felt like i didn't`t do much, but now that i look back at it i can see the passion that these people now hold that i helped instill. When you take a step back you can really appreciate how much FIRST impacts lives.

FIRST has taught me so many valuable lessons. My team members taught me how to be patient and kind (even though i wanted to hit them at times). They also taught me what real friends are. My mentors taught me that even though my family hasn't before me, i can go to college and that success stories aren`t just in fairy tales. my mentors also give me the resources i need to be successful. My team is my family and they have taught me so much that it would be too long winded to write it all. Leaving them is so bittersweet im proud of my team and im confident in the leaders for next year but ill miss seeing my family almost every day, ill still visit(and mentor in my professional years). even when i get older these people will always be in my heart.

Thank you to all of the mentors and students for changing my life.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

The past four months have been simultaneously the best months of my life and the worst months of my life. And I learned that it's okay.

I learned that you won't always go to Championship.

I learned that FIRST is family.

I also learned that being on drive team is one of the most coveted positions on any team, but it is also one of the hardest.

To elaborate on all of my statements, this is season is my fourth and final FRC season as a student. I entered the season with huge hopes and huge fears; losing our two programmers to graduation was terrifying. I tried my best to learn from them over the summer, but, in the words of Coldplay, sometimes you try your best and don't succeed. I was the programming group leader, but I wasn't the best programmer and I learned that it's okay. My job was to offer support and guidance, not single-handedly program a robot by myself.

After attending Championship for three years in a row, I became very accustomed the idea of attending. I was so excited to go to St Louis. After our performance at FiM St Joseph, I could feel that dream slipping away. But then we went to FiM Lansing and we were picked as the second overall draft. We went home with the blue banner, but I knew we still had work to do. So, we moved on to FiM LSSU. We won Chairmans for the first time in my team's history. Personally, it was my ninth presentation and I was the only person sustained from the first presentation in 2014. I was so proud. I was excited for MSC.

I never thought I'd have to say that we won two blue banners, but didn't make it to Championship.

For awhile, I was bitter. I was sad and I wanted nothing more than to experience Championship as a drive team member.

But I learned that sometimes it's just not your time. Not everyone can go to Championship every year and this was our year to not go. It sucks, but all of the teams that went from Michigan deserved it so, so, so much. I'm so proud of the way Michigan showed at Championship. Am I sad my team couldn't be there? Yeah. But am I still bitter about it? No.

This post is getting super long-winded, but I wanted to touch on one more thing. One week before Lansing pits opened, my mom died. My team was absolutely amazing. Everyone was so supportive and was there for me in anyway I needed. Three of my teammates came over after I found out with food, card games, and hugs. I've never felt so blessed. That's when I learned FIRST is family.

So, if you read this, I learned a lot this season and I hope that my experiences inspire someone in some way, shape or form. If you're like me and didn't get to go to Championship this year, use that as your motivation next season. If at first you don't succeed, try again! When you do get to go, it'll be awesome. I promise.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Don't try to do everything. You have to trust people under you to do things right.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

It takes 2-3 months for a fingernail to completely re-grow (link SFW). I've also learned exactly how frequently the middle and ring fingers of your dominant hand are used...

I had forgotten how crazy and intensive build season actually is. I'll be better prepared next year. Three (of several) specific lessons learned related to this:
- Functioning on <6 hours of sleep is much harder when you have a full time job AND mentor a team.
- I should probably buy a slow-cooker so my lunches don't suck during build season.
- Never skip dinner.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

Not to drive 2300 miles cross country to Las Vegas to work the regional on rapidly failing tires.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

This season I learned that even as a key volunteer (scorekeeper), I am not the only person with my talents and if I can't make an event, given proper advanced notice, the show will go on. Not that this makes me feel "not special", but at least I can sleep at night a little bit easier.

Re: Hardest personal lesson learned?
 

I learned that it's extremely hard to overcome past reputations and bad first impressions. I have to assume the role of lead mechanic and team president next year, and I can barely think sometimes with the amount of social pressure that a less than savory past couple years of poor attitude and sociability created.

I learned to do my best to not let the little things get to me. Before I would just pop off at the smallest of things, somehow believing it was part of 'being an engineer' and how we 'love to argue.' I was just being a jerk to the people that I didn't need to be, and I regret it. I came from a background that left me extremely socially inept and unacclimated to a public high school climate, and I am paying for it. But sometimes the hardest thing is just keeping a head on my shoulders when half of my team bears down on me and won't let me go from past events and decisions that I just want to distance myself from.

And now I'm praying things will look up and that we can all work together to improve some of the deeper issues with our team, but it might be impossible when some of them drop progress and cooperation for drama and harassment over things that really shouldn't matter anymore.