Quote:
Originally Posted by jwfoss
Set small goals. Focus on internal growth of the team. I am a firm believer that before a team starts doing community outreach and "chairman's activities" they need to be strong internally first.
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I'd definitely echo everything already said, especially this tidbit above. From a rookie season perspective, my own team bit off more than we could chew. We, much like you, are a group of mentors and students who strive for a strong team, however, I think we struggled in many areas where we could not put in 100% effort because we were spread too thin. We built two full robots which were both out of our comfort zone in terms of KISS, we competed for awards as if we had been around for 10+ years, and tried to have a very strong team image. In the end, we loved what we accomplished, but we definitely spread ourselves too thin in terms of trying to be the best team in every aspect of FRC. We were extremely proud but we were also burnt out, tired, and not 100% satisfied with our performance in many areas of the team.
This season definitely taught us to pick our battles. We tried to become a strong veteran team in one season, but for us, it probably was too fast of a pace. Even with exceptional students, we struggled to really achieve our on-field goals + organizational goals, we should have focused on small aspects of both. I believe that honestly evaluating your mentor base, student base, and teacher base will allow you to figure out which goals you can realistically achieve during a given season.
tl;dr- pick your battles and focus on one thing at a time.
+0.02
-Akash