[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

What I think the problem in our team is the lack of unity; we do not have a defined goal. Some kids are in it for the brownie points for college, some are in it for the fun, some want to just build robots, some are in it because they support FIRST's mission and others are in it for the competition. I need to unite the team under one goal.

While a general common purpose is good, remember that diversity is a virtue. As long as you can get them all to work hard, people with diverse reasons for doing FIRST will do diverse things within the team, leading to a stronger team overall. There's a fine line between working towards the same goal, and forcing conformity. Remember that you're in a program with a lot of turnover, which people enter for extremely diverse reasons.


As far as "what to focus on," the bottom line is that there's no substitute for hard work. Want more funding and flexibility? Send more letters, work more fundraisers, and sell more lightbulbs. Choose to do a second event? Endlessly iterate your robot to get the most out of it. Focusing on offseason prototypes? Get the most out of limited resources by using them creatively, and putting in the hours on inventor to try to get it right the first time. No matter what you work on, working on it intensely will lead to success.