Quote:
Originally Posted by squirrel
Your performance speaks for itself.
I doubt there is something special about the students you have, that separates them so far from the students on other teams in terms of what they can accomplish with robots. I think the difference is in the adults on the team. I think it's based in a very strong drive to succeed in one or a few mentors, which leads eventually to a team that is an unstoppable powerhouse.
I don't propose that you not try to do your best. I am (apparently in vain) just trying to get the mentors of some of the top teams to have some slight grasp of how some other people see them.
I don't intend to be negative. I'm trying to help solve a problem. The problem has more than one side, though. If you can't see that, then you're going to have difficulty changing the situation.
If I've offended anyone, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.
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I will agree with two points you made:
1) The students on WildStang are probably not 10 times more special than students on other teams.
and
2) The mentors are what makes the consistently great teams consistently great.
However, I very much disagree with the leap from "the mentors are what makes a team consistently great" to "the mentors do everything".
High school sports is a great example. Every state has teams that are elite year after year in a given sport (around here Farmington Hills Harrison football is a great example). Are their students inherently superior in football every year? No - it's the coaches that are the common factor (like the mentors in FIRST).
Do we now make the leap that the coaches must be donning masks to look like teenagers and play quarterback and running back? It's pretty obvious that they aren't doing that. The job of the coaches is to have a winning SYSTEM, and a METHOD to teach and apply the system.
If adults instill consistently elite programs with high school kids playing football, why can't the same be done in robotics?