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Unread 25-05-2011, 22:38
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Karthik Karthik is offline
VEX Robotics GDC Chairman
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Re: Why Losers Lose?

As opposed to answering the poorly formed literal question posed in the thread title, I'll go with a more generic "Why do teams fail to succeed". For the purposes of this exercise, let's define success as "producing a robot with competes at a below average to average level". Many teams have higher goals, while some teams have completely different goals, but this is a good basis to form a question of success around.

This is just snapshot of some of the more common reasons, many of which have been touched upon already in this thread.

- Building before strategically designing and analyzing the game: "How can you build a robot if you don't know what it's supposed to do"
- A failure to honestly and realistically evaluate one's resources (resources in this context are defined as time, experience, fabrication abilities and money), thus making you think you're capable of doing more than you can do.
- A failure to properly design around one's resources
- Over complicated robots: "The jack of all trades is the master of none"
- Lack of effort/desire/focus
- Lack of practice
- A failure to strategize
__________________
:: Karthik Kanagasabapathy ::
"Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm" -- R.W. Emerson
My TEDx Talk - The Subtle Secrets of Success
Full disclosure: I work for IFI and VEX Robotics, and am the Chairman of the VEX Robotics and VEX IQ Game Design Committees
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