Competition and Jealousy
 

For the last couple months I've tried to post something like this but it never felt right. It has been sitting in a document for the past 2 weeks and still doesn't but I think the important parts are there.

Why is it that these people who Dean constantly belittles get FIRST better than the rest of us? When was the last time you heard a person in sports say, "[Organizing Group] needs to level the playing field because some players always win." Take Sean White, he didn't even need to make his last run at the Olympics. Did his opponents say he was just too good and pack it up? Did they complain about how unfair it was? Did they attack him personally? They may have in private but never did I see them insult him publicly. Publicly they acknowledge how hard he worked and how he deserved it.

I am from Michigan, home of the Lions. For anyone who doesn't know about it the Lions stink. I don't mean rotten eggs I mean like students on a 14 hr bus ride to Atlanta with broken AC stench. You don't hear them complaining about how some team (I don't know football) wins all the time. In fact, you hear them have the attitude of, "We are going to keep trying." You know, I bet they know they can't win the Superbowl right now but I bet that doesn't affect how they play or train. I bet they watch what other teams do and try to emulate it. I bet they don't sit around on the football forums griping about how the Packers (know nothing about football!) only win because have more money or because they have more people. Why the heck do I see that in FIRST?

Most athletes that I know of are not in it to win it. They are there for the love the game, they trained their whole life because they LOVE doing what they do. I think maybe that is the reason that FIRST hasn't been more successful; So many of us, it seems, are in it for the wrong reasons. FRC started in a high school gym with no fancy lights, no cool audio systems, no celebrities. Just a group of people who had a passion for changing the world for a group of high schoolers. Maybe we should get back to that instead of worrying about beating other teams.

Sorry for the rant.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Eh Im in it for the challenge, winning is just a side effect...

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Not saying I agree or disagree with your post but a few ideas/comments.

1. While it may not happen as often in football, baseball teams (and especially fans) do complain about how teams have more resources than other teams. A TON of people complain that the Yankees just buy their championships. Recently, I remember reading a story where the Brewers' owner or GM was complaining how they simply cannot sign their own players when the player knows they can sign for a ton of money with other teams.

2. While most professional athletes do play for the love of the game, a significant majority (especially the great ones) play to win. I don't think Brett Favre would spend most of his nights in the Viking's film rooms just because he like to play (he could play without watching film); he does it because he wants to win.

3. Did FIRST start as "a group of people who had a passion for changing the world for a group of high schoolers"? I was like 3 when FIRST started, so I have no idea. Maybe someone who was around back then could chime in.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I completely agree. Our club mission, verbatim, is:
But after last year, there's quite a bit of loss in faith in the club by those who are completely dedicated to the club out of passion, because our club painfully clearly is not geared toward fulfilling that mission, but rather on winning. Winning should be (or is) just the medium by which the mission is achieved, though winning certainly does build interest.

It seems that our mission is a noble placeholder stuck on our website meant to gain support for the club. There are few people in the club that "get it": gracious professionalism, FIRST's mission, our mission, all of it. There is a reason why the Chairman's Award is more prestigious than the Championship trophy...

But this year and likely for the next few years, it looks like we're finally getting some members, including a mentor, who really "get it" into the leadership. Hopefully, our team is heading in the right direction...


P.S. The members of our team who care enough to extend outside the bounds of our team, i.e. look up teams on TBA, check CD, view past videos have this idol worship of Michigan teams (esp. 33/67) and Team IFI. I'm not an exception :D

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I don't see how that's any different from FIRST. The powerhouse teams are powerhouses because of a desire to win. FIRST is not all about winning, or the competition, but winning is a lot more inspiring than losing is.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I know I've talked to you about this topic before and this may be the 5 AM, Dew-fueled, engineering-analysis crammed overstressed brain talking, but I think athletes participate not because they love "the game", but they love the journey to victory. Of course, most of them will not be successful, but they participate with the desire and relentless pursuit of victory, and that is what they enjoy. In FIRST, you get that too, and you enjoy it even if you're not holding the trophy in the end.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

There are flaws comparing FIRST to professional athletics:

• We are not professional roboticists. To get a true comparison, you should be comparing FRC to high school sports teams.
• Our continued presence in our sport does not depend on our performance nearly as much as it does in professional (or even HS) sports. When's the last time you heard of someone cut from the robotics team, other than for disruptive behavior?
• Even if the comparison was valid, most sports leagues do have some leveling mechanisms:
• -- Salary caps
• -- The worst team gets the first draft pick
• -- Scheduling
• -- In European soccer, promotion/regulation.

Are 1114 and 217 FRC's equivalent of the "$@#$@#$@#$@# Yankees?" Maybe. But eventually every dynasty falls. It's a special tribute to FRC teams and their leadership when the dynasty can last so long.

Instead of criticizing or whining about the best-of-the-best teams - and I'm not saying anyone has done that in this thread - learn from them. One thing I have noticed about every team that is successful in FRC, no matter how you define that, is that they are willing to share their success and mentor. They want other teams to be just as successful as they are.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I can respect the comparisons to sports but I've always thought that FRC can't fit into that mold. Not even close. There are those who think of it in terms of sports and who apply the sports mindset to it, true - but the opportunities that avail themselves to the members and supporters of the teams and the program, stretch way beyond that mindset and narrow viewpoint.

We're dealing with a unique and complicated blending of ages, talents, levels of skill, knowledge, and experience. We're contending with communities who vary in their support and awareness of the program and its potential. There are so many parts of the program that are cyclical with students entering into the team as rookies and exiting the team as veterans - constantly. With that cycle, comes the responsibility of helping sustain not only the competitive edges gained but also the maturity and wisdom that should be growing and developing within the team and within the community. When teams are contending with immaturity in the members and in the team development, that is where jealousy will be found.

If you read posts and threads in CD that reflect this topic well, look at the posters. And - look at who is not posting in the threads. It isn't helpful to the current membership of CD that is struggling with maturity, gaining insight, and experience to have the more experienced members of FRC refrain from sharing their perspective, insight, wisdom, and humor - but that's generally the way it has been for a while. So - you'll see a lot of posting that reflects jealousy and lack of understanding. Hopefully, a lot of this is actually addressed within the team, although - as new teams sprout up quickly, bringing new mentors on board - it is a challenge to help them understand FRC and the goals and mission of FIRST. It is also a challenge for veteran teams who bring in new mentors and parents - to get them up to speed in areas of the competition that can otherwise breed jealousy and resentment. It takes a lot of effort and hard work on the part of the veteran members of the teams and the members of the CD community. If no one cares to put out that effort, then the program suffers.

Competitors want to win - always. Wise competitors figure out what that means and what it takes to achieve that goal. Even wiser mentors figure out what the end goal is for the team as a whole in the long run - balancing their options with reality and then pushing for excellence both on the field and off. The standard of excellence off the field helps determine the mindset of winning in FRC.

Jane

Edit: an example of what could easily make a difference in CD - in threads that focus on what the best or most memorable moment of FIRST, FRC, the season is/was - many students post or may post about a specific moment during the robotics competition. That's good. It's nice. What we are failing to see, are the mentors and parents who could post about their best or most memorable moment of the season - keeping the threads shallow where they could be deeper - because of the wisdom, experience, and perspective that could be brought to the discussion. By having the input of the students combined with the insight of the mentors is what creates the beauty and the strength of the experience.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I am a mentor and my thought on FIRST is that winning is not the goal. The goal is to inspire these students in not only math and science, but in teamwork, respect, gracious professionalism, etc. I have been lucky to work for the last 3 years with a wide variety of students and every one has shown me there is hope for the future generation. They are kind, helpful, intelligent and great problem solvers. They don't get upset if things go wrong, they just work through the problems. They would like to win, but are gracious if they are not the ones called for the award. They root for everyone and try to help those in need.

To me, the greatest awards are the Engineering Inspiration and the Gracious Professionalim awards. They show me the better side of FIRST.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I don't think that playing to win is the problem...I think that everyone who is in any competition because they love the game they are playing also has a desire to win. Does that mean they had an unsuccessful season if they don't win? No, especially not if FIRST, since success is measured on so many levels. This year we had our most successful season even though we never won a competition; however, we did win a District Chairman's award which was sweeter than winning an event. Would we have liked to win an event or two also? Of course, but we're willing to be patient and keep improving until we get to that point. We're also not satisfied with one District Chairman's award - we hope to keep building and improving there also.

Along with that desire to win is a feeling of wanting to earn it - I don't want a victory handed to me. It is so much sweeter if you have to go through the battles to get there. Each year our team looks at what we've done and analyze what worked well and what can we improve upon. We are constantly looking at what the FIRST powerhouses do and try to emulate some of those aspects.

I don't dislike the successful teams in FIRST - I use them as motivation to get better so we can eventually be one of them. Why should a team be faulted for wanting to win and being good at it? That doesn't necessarily mean they devalue the other aspects of FIRST - in fact, I think you'll find that most the powerhouse teams are successful not only in competitions, but in all aspects of FIRST.

A goal for me is to not only inspire students in science and engineering, but also to instill that value of having to work for and earn your victories. You have to take your lumps on the way to the top - learn from mistakes, emulate those who are successful, and just keep improving and plugging away. Persistance can be a wonderful quality!

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I can't believe someone hasn't brought this up yet: Our competition season is not the first four months of the year... and it is definitely not about winning a robot tournament. The whole reason FIRST stands apart from sports is the definition of winning is totally different. You win at a sport if you can score the most points in each game more times than the other teams. At the end of each season, everyone's points get reset. You win at FIRST when you achieve the goal of fulfilling your passions in a way that helps the world.

In my opinion, arguing about which teams have an advantage because of their resources is meaningless. My team has some excellent mentors that share their passions with students every day. Our students are increasingly challenging themselves to achieve more with the little they are given. Our seniors are attending higher education pursuant with their goals so that they can be on the cutting edge of their fields. This is what FIRST is about. The robot and the competitions in March and April are tricks to draw the students in. If my students graduate without realizing that, then I have failed to pass on the right message.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

It would create an interesting dynamic if the 8th seeded team got the first pick for alliances. (You'd either have to get rid of respectful declinations or not allow picking within the top 8)

When you try to level the playing field between teams with no experience and teams with over a decade you run into issues. Its an idea I've been playing with but rather than leveling the playing field with the game, level it by making alliances of veteran teams and rookie teams, encouraging veteran teams to adopt rookie teams and help them learn.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

They tried that in 2007. It was almost universally hated. The alliance generation algorithm that year separated teams into 3 groups by number, and assigned one team per group to each alliance. Playing against 1114 or 67 or teams of that nature for 3/4 of your matches or more (and never with them or with teams of their caliber) is not the most fun thing in the world, to put it mildly, and that's what happened at some of the smaller events. (The larger events had it easier, due to larger pools to draw from, but there were still a huge number of repeat opponents compared to, say, 2009 or 2010.) Also note that age and ability are not necessarily related; I can think of rookies that are more veteran in action than some of the veteran teams.

A better way would be to encourage veterans to adopt rookies and help them learn. There are a number of ways to do this; the simplest is a pat on the back; a more expensive but more productive method would be to offer an extra discount on something. The hard part would be to convince the rookies that they need the help that the veterans offer...

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

My team generally runs on the philosophy of;
"We do what we do-with what we have"

Yes, I'm kind of jelous when I see other teams with robots that look way cooler than ours.(machined parts and stuff like that) But I feel like there is no need for that, I mean, we could go out and find a machine shop to sponser us, and that would be nice, but we dont need that kind of stuff to be successful in our minds.

My team has never won a Regional or Off-season competition. Yes, it's frustrating to loose to basically the same teams at UCF every year, and I've only got one more year to drive the robot, but I just let it go, and think. "we'll get it next year" :D

I don't think there is any real "jelousy" on my team, we just keep to ourselves and dont worry about how good other teams robots may be, we play at one of the toughest regionals is FIRST, but we dont get upset or "jelous" when we loose to teams that have won there nearly 4 times in a row. We just concentrate on getting better for next year so we can put up an even bigger fight, we did this after 09' and it almost got us a win this year. so I guess it works?

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I don't think some attempts to "level the playing field" is belittling or bad.

Let's be honest, the true powerhouse teams will always be powerhouses. I mean, always, like 1114, I guess.

In the NFL, for drafts, the worst teams usually go first in the draft picking order, in order to give them a little handicap – so even sports, this happens.
I am fine with Dean talking about "leveling" the plane field. Some teams may not appreciate that there's a "handicap" for them, but then again, it's just for the best intentions, and I think that it's perfectly fine.

I mean, say that there was no consideration of any "leveling of the playing field" and the newer or less resourced teams looked up to the powerhouse teams and took inspiration from them. Why should that cease when there's a "leveling of the playing field"? I think it's great that we can both be considerate of new teams with tiny budgets while keeping the game simple and enjoyable.

We have to keep in mind all the new rookie teams that completely dominate the older teams!!! :)

Keehun
Team 2502

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

In my mind there are two types of teams playing first:

1) The power-house win-win-win teams that have great resources at their disposal and very effective management.

2) The teams that just like making robots and competing for the sake of making a robot and competing with it, and maybe having an upset win here or there to make things interesting.

To be honest the most fun and enjoyable teams that I've ever been on (Robotics, Soccer, Volleyball, Ski Racing, Formula SAE, etc) always played because it was fun and we enjoyed it. There was always some team with way more resources, better equipment, more practice, better skis, or a faster car, it might just be me, but I love simply competing, regardless of the outcome. I find it very satisfying to give something 100% of my effort.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Oh, I completely agree. I was just responding to the quote by the OP: "Most athletes that I know of are not in it to win it." I do think the powerhouse teams do play to win and the desire to win a certainly a good thing. Of course, if taken too far (such as winning at all costs by cheating), the desire can have negitive impacts. I do not think we are at that stage, yet.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

My team has had limited success winning (we qualified for elims our rooke year, 2008), but the goal of FIRST to me is far broader than that. Sure, winning would be nice, but it requires sacrifices. If I am under extreme pressure (more that there already is to build a robot in 6 weeks) to win, it takes away the fun to a degree. I enjoy being able to laugh and joke with my team mates, even at the competition. If we ship a working robot and do ok at the competition, we feel accomplished.

Winning would be nice, but the goal of this whole crazy project is to learn and spread the influence of technology. As long as I learn and have fun, I feel like FIRST has done its job. If I win in compeition, thats icing on the cake. Granted my team does not have all the resources 1114 or 267 have, but we do what we can with what we have, and it adds to the challenge.

Interesting side note: we won the Engieneering Excellence Award and no one from our team was left at the competition to accept it. We dont put a lot of emphasis on trophies, but building skills, memories and friends.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Powerhouse teams also are very good inspiration for smaller teams with less resources. Teams watch and see robots that make their own look primitive at times, but it gives teams something to work towards. We may not have the financial resources, but seeing what resources can get your makes us want to find new sponsors. My team now, is far from being a powerhouse team, but we constantly look to what the powerhouse teams do as inspiration to make our team as effective and useful we can be with the resources we have. They make FRC interesting by showing what students together with mentors can achieve at their best, and give a good example of what teams should strive for.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I wouldn't say entering a competition to win is the wrong reason to enter.

All in all I do agree with your post, but I would prefer not to downplay the importance of the competitive aspect.

The competition is really fun, despite all the fun and I've had in other aspects, the competition was the my enlightening moment where I decided FIRST was really something I wanted to do, which resulted in my aspirations to become a mechanical engineer. If my team wasn't going all out to win in 2007, the competition would not have been have as fun or inspiring.

FIRST's primary purpose is to Inspire and the competitive aspect plays an integral role in this. If people want to be competitive and do what they can to win, let them do it without others complaining.

Going back to how I agree with most of your post...It's important that the values and goals of FIRST are not lost in the desire to win, but I feel like this certainly is not the case at this point. If it becomes the case further down the road, I'll be more than happy to skeptically look at over competition, but for right now, I see no problems.

Considering the expence of FIRST it's amazing its as successful as it is today...but it's not random, there's a reason...It's because most of the things FIRST has done they've done right. I wouldn't look skeptically upon lack of success even compared to potential. Consider all of the people FIRST has affected. In my opinion, that's nothing but success.

I agree very much about people giving up, or not giving up though. Honestly my team has been getting competitively worse, our best years were 2007 and 2008, but our team has contiued to grow, we've worked hard and have a bigger effect on the community and inspired more people. You don't have to win to inspire, which is where I agree with you, but the competition is really important and really fun (as described above).

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Why would you name your organization US FIRST if you didn't intend to win a competition of some sort? :)

While the United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology has clearly changed over the past 21 years, I think competition is a perfectly healthy and rather important component of the program. It's unfortunate that some of the teams that really get it get dragged through the mud annually, but I perennial champions in any sport get the same sort of treatment. If Lance Armstrong didn't have 7 yellow jerseys, would he be accused of using steroids? If Micheal Phelps didn't win 8 gold medals, would he be accused of steroid use? If the New England Patriots didn't keep winning Superbowl titles in the early 2000s, would they be accused of all sorts of rule breaking? Aren't the Yankees disliked because they've won the World Series too many times?

I think it unfortunately comes with being an elite athlete, engineer, FIRST team, etc. People don't like to lose, but whining is a whole lot easier than training harder, studying more, or spending your off-season prototyping.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I don’t think the Lions situation is at all similar to that of an aspiring FIRST team. Their regular season does not entail being paired at random with two other football teams. Their playoffs do not consist of three wild card teams going up against two conference winners and a lesser team of their choice. They never see the Viking fans wearing cheese hats way early in the season to drive home the foregone conclusion that together the Vikings and Packers will dominate the NFC North.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Oh come on now, as much as I like Detroit in hockey, there's no way I can support the Lions. Lol but ok fine maybe NFL analogies don't always work with FRC, I'll give you that much.

.
Red Wings <3

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

You're right. The LIONS are not at all similar to an ASPIRING FIRST team, but this thread was not about the fact that football teams don't cooperate or cheer for each other. Professional sports teams are a good analogy to FIRST because the level of competition is high and there are teams that are very elite and blow everyone else out of the water. But you don't see them whining nearly as much as FIRST teams whine. I have seen some liberal interpretations of Gracious Professionalism this year; I'm not a fan.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Thanks for your insight Eric. Coming from NH, and only attending the GSR, I had not realized it was tried, or let alone that this was the case. It definitely makes sense.

This was sort of what I was hinting at, at competition is one thing, and it wouldn't really have an impact on "competition and jealousy". My thought was more with regards to fixed alliances or "robot teams" I think this would create an interesting dynamic. Imagine 2010 if you worked throughout the season with 2 other teams. Think of how many more suspensions we would have seen. Also coordinated autonomous would be quite a feat, also you would see many more teams with autonomous.

Currently "collaboration" in FIRST is synonymous with identical or mass produced. Imagine if collaboration was more working to accomplish a feat that could not be done individually.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

How is whining about whining supposed to be an improvement?

If people have gripes, they should be allowed to air them without being told to shut up and drink their Kool Aid. Whether it is 6v0, the definition of “inside”, frustrations with minor technicalities, powerhouse collaborations, a $1k discount linked to a $2.5k KoP shortfall, or a civil request for transparency, each issue raised has some value – even if only for nothing more than letting off steam.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Actually there are lots of people with a different interpretation.

Five years ago a group of teams banded together and called themselves the Baltimore Area Alliance (BAA). They have a mission statement, use of a 501(c)3, a treasurer and a facilitator. Reps meet on a regular basis. They do some joint fundraising. This year they had enough funding to give out grants to teams who applied (including a rookie who was not in the Baltimore area). This year they built a field. They hold a day of workshops in the fall open to any team.

And for the 4th year they are putting on a successful and fun off-season event, the Battle O'Baltimore. http://www.battleobaltimore.com/
Having around 10 teams band together to put on a competition is a great team builder on every level and would be difficult if done by an individual team in this area. They do a fine job.

These teams all compete against each other and build different robots. But they try to share ideas, concerns and resources.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Thanks for chiming in with a different perspective regarding collaboration, Jenny. I was hoping you would. :)

Jane

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

As easy as it is to compare FIRST with most sports, there are a lot of major differences between the two. Although there definitely are people who are involved with FIRST for the wrong reasons, there are also people in modern sports in it for the same wrong reasons and, in my opinion, plenty of people involved with FIRST for all the right reasons. I personally, think that the competition only adds to the challenge and the fun of the game, but I can see how it would take away from the experience for some. As far as athletes being in it because they love the game, as I walk through competitions and look at all the people smiling, cheering, and dancing, I would say we have that too. I certainly love robotics, and I think I can speak for everyone who comes back year after year in saying that they love it too.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

You really should expand your mind. There are many many many shades of gray between your black and white. Wanting to do well doesn't mean that you can't have fun. Wanting to have fun doesn't mean that you want to do well.
In my mind there are tons of shades of not only black and white, but electric blue, tie-die rainbow, and safety green. While it is important to not allow yourself to fall into the extrememes of competitiveness, it is also important to have a drive to succeed (at whatever your goals are). The two groups you talk about are likely to be a minority with most teams falling somewhere in-between.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Do I admire (and envy) the resources of time, talent, experience and funding some teams have? You bet I do …. almost as much as I admire their energy, commitment and the help and the inspiration that they provide, the wow factor, and the excellence that they model for all of us.

Great teams are fun to play with and against (or to just watch and be awed). Sure, because these teams are so good they are going to be tough to beat. They keep raising the bar, which means in order to be competitive you will need to accomplish more. The challenge these teams provide us drives us to improve, and pushes us to try things and to do things we never before thought possible. And whether or not we are awarded in the course of the season, at its end our team will look back, and we’ll look at one another, and we will wonder how we were able to accomplish what we did.

And while accomplishment is not always measured by wins and losses or by award totals, sustainability may be. One difficulty that I’m sure many of you can relate to occurs, when after an Event, a friend, coworker or sponsor who isn’t intimately involved in FIRST asks, ”How did you do?” Because whether we’ve won or lost, any explanation I might offer would never be able to tell the story of what we got out of that event, or the season.

In the short attention span world we live in, we may have 20 seconds, or 20 words, to tell our story and to convey our accomplishments. For our sponsors and supporters who must communicate with the less enlightened outside world, it is much easier for them to gain support for our program when they can use those 20 words (or seconds) to talk about victories and awards. Even though we all may be “winners”, like it or not, awards certainly do help to validate a team's achievements for the purpose of attracting (and retaining) sponsors, mentors, and team members.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

This isn't necessarily my opinion, but its a point that someone once brought up:

Its called a "competition". Therefor, people are going to compete. This means that they will try to win. That's the purpose of a competition. To win. So teams are going to use their resources to do just that. Win. Accept it and move on.

Like I said, not necessarily my opinion.

But a more Katie-spin, I do agree with most of what that person said. That's how it works. Yeah, I've been jealous that other teams had the money, sponsors, students but at the same time, I like my team A LOT. I don't think I'd change them for anything. I like our robots and I like how we make them. I like how they look, and I'm just proud of seeing that hunk of metal do something cause I helped make it. :)

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I'd like to think that FIRST is a microcosm of the real world. There are lessons we learn that can stay with us forever. As a student, I used FIRST as a training ground to mold myself into the person I am today. Over the passage of time, here are a few lessons I have learned:


You cannot be stuck up about winning. In real life and in competition. If you want to be a true winner, you have to learn to have an internal reference point. What I mean is you have to learn to compete with yourself and not with the outside world. As others have stated, FIRST is not a level playing field and teams have various levels of resources and there is no way every team build a championship winning robot. However, what you can do is ask yourself "With the resources available, have I done the best I can do? Have I out-done my previous performances?". If the answer to that is Yes, I am happy. This has helped me tremendously in my professional development and taught me a lot about working under pressure and limited resources.

I believe Gracious Professionalism is one of the most misunderstood concepts these days. If I am going to compete on the playing field, I want to compete against the best possible opponents to challenge me or else there is no room for my growth. How am I supposed to know how good I really am if I am not playing against the hardest/smartest possible opponents? Gracious Professionalism is helping my partners and opponents be the best they possibly can off the field and Gracious Professionalism is competing at my best on the field. You help yourself also by helping your opponents.

Oftentimes, successful (however you define that) teams give very valuable advice to the rest of the community. One thing my team has preached for many years is keeping it simple and working within your resources. If the game requires a robot to perform 3 tasks, you are better off performing 2 tasks very well as opposed to all 3 not-as-well.

What I am trying to get at is - there are comparisons between sports and FIRST. There are similarities and lessons to be learned. Sports teaches some better (competing, winning etc) than others (Gracious Professionalism). In a world of science and technology, principles such as GP can be very valuable. It is what you take from it and it is about keeping things in the right perspective. It can be about winning but the more importantly how you win. What lessons did you learn as you won?

Hope that some makes sense.

-Bharat

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

Jenny, you might want to share that in the "Collaborations and Alliances" thread, too.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

This type of business collaboration is phenomenal, and I am excited to hear that it is going on. It's awesome to hear that students are able to leverage the strength of a larger business and give back to the FIRST community at the same time. I'm curious, where the alliance is formed by many teams, are there any plans to market the various technologies (similar to the swerve drive) and manufacture/sell them themselves?

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

This might not be a bad idea for a team with good fabrication facilities. If you build to order certain little trinkets (stuff like gearbox sideplates, tensioners, etc) for a slight profit, that could do a small amount of fundraising for a team.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I feel that some people pay more attention to the competition then the build season, which could set some people off. Winning is nice once in a while, but I feel that the main experience is during the build season. During build season we are learning about different aspects of engineering, which is what I thought we as FIRSTers should be doing; we should be more focused about teaching engineering to students and learning more, not winning competitions. I am not saying that winning is insignificant, but some people seem to be focused more on the competition, which could be why FIRST changed things up a little bit with this coopertition aspect.

In short, some people should realize that the build season is the more significant portion of the competition. Competition is a place to have fun, meet new people, and celebrate a successful build season (winning would be nice too, but it shouldnt be the main focus).

My personal view.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I agree with you, all those threads had their purposes, I even started one of those. But there is a definite difference between constructive criticism of game or competition fundamentals and saying "469 cheated!", "1114's students don't do anything!" or "HoT is unfair!" If there is a legitimate complaint with something controllable or something that we as a community can change via feedback to FIRST or to the community then by all means post it and see what everyone thinks. Those threads aren't the problem. In a way this thread is similar to those. This thread, like those, is pointing out a problem in the community (as described below) and aiming to fix it.

I'm only concerned about people who want to whine about how they don't have the resources or sponsors, or complain how everyone else is better than them. Where do you think those teams started! They need to get off chief if they're going to say that crap. No one wants to hear it. All they're doing is making their team look stupid and earning themselves red dots.

Re: Competition and Jealousy
 

I've had other posts about this so forgive me for repeating and I see there is another thread about alliances. But there are some valuable lessons learned.

Many of these teams were hitting up the same sponsors. Sponsors were more willing to give to a group, rather than supporting an individual team. One company had sponsored various teams over the years, but was happy to give to the BAA instead. It's an easier sell. The state dept. of education was impressed and gave the BAA some funding. The TIME center http://www.time-center.org/ has been a huge partner. One of the members was invited to do a pitch for the MD. Space Business Roundtable and they gave funding. The key elements are: the teams are under this common umbrella and they have access to a 501(c)3 (a private foundation who agreed to help.)

It's been fun watching this group evolve. Like every "team" it wouldn't happen without some dedicated people who stepped up to key roles. Each year there seems to be different challenges. This year it was "how do we fairly give out funding?" It's provoked some interesting discussion. And how exciting it was for the group to see "Baltimore Area Alliance" in many of the sponsor names for Maryland teams.

There is an ebb and flow. Teams have dropped out, joined, taken on more of a role, stepped back.

Who knows what will happen this year?