Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBot
From practice day, the mystique started to grow. How come they weren’t in any matches? Was their robot working? No, I was told… they never show their robot ahead of time. I thought that was odd, but I’d learned not to believe urbane legends.
|
Urban legend indeed. We weren't in our morning practice matches because we were upgrading our deployment and dealing with Banebot issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBot
Several times during the event I did try and go over to have a look at their robot, and talk to their team about how they organized themselves, but I will admit to being somewhat intimidated, and I didn’t have much success. They seemed very protective of their robot and tended to keep much to themselves. It was difficult to even start up a conversation. Perhaps this was in response to feeling somewhat under the microscope.
|
We're generally a reserved group at competitions who definitely keep to ourselves. It's less about being under the microscope and more about being focused on a particular task and not getting distracted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBot
This was my first time competing with 1114 in a regional, so I don’t know if their reserved nature, on and off the field is typical. I also don’t know if the “apparent” stand-offish nature that I observed is real or imagined. I could understand their possible reluctance to show off their entire tech to other US teams. As a non-American (I grew up in Australia) I’ve experienced the fear more than once that the USA comes in with open arms and leaves with all your goodies  |
The reserved nature is typical, but I wouldn't call it "stand-offish". We definitely shared details about our robot to many teams who came by to visit. There was definitely no reluctance to show off information to US teams.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBot
I believe 1114 has won Chairmans several times, so they clearly understand the FIRST mission. Perhaps they could help us eliminate the “haters” by showing US a bit more about what makes THEM the team that they are (rather than just a great robot).
|
We normally have an extensive display which talks about our non-robot efforts at our later events. It just wasn't done in time for Pittsburgh. Here's some archived information from the past:
http://www.simbotics.org/team/outreach
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBot
I for one would love to find out what motivates them, and try to apply it to my own team. Next time I'll try harder to start a conversation.
|
I look forward to that conversation.