Quote:
Originally Posted by flargen507
But I just had the experience of having to look at 30 depressed and distraught faces about a regional where our robot barely moved. Do you want me to look at them and tell them that our robot lost because the other teams were just way better than us and all of their hard work and pain wasn't good enough? Sometimes to keep a group of kids to not just quit out of anger you have to console them. Sometimes that means telling them that those other teams were a bunch of mentor bots just to keep the peace. Is it the nicest thing to do? No. Is it the most gracious thing to do? No. But at that point it is one of the only ways to keep inspiring that group of kids.
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I have to disagree with this one hundred percent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffy
Curious what teams do to discourage these counter-productive notions throughout a team.
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I take it a little at a time as it comes. Clip from this weekend: I was at SVR and happened to be outside 254's pit when they came back from a match which had destroyed the belt inside one of their climber arms. They rolled the robot into the pit and four students immediately began to swap in a replacement. It was so cool to watch them in action, while a couple of mentors basically looked on.
Today I was talking to a parent. She began, "And if you noticed, when the Cheesy Poof's arm broke, it was all the mentors working on it." What do you say? "Actually, I was there when that happened - and it was all the students working on the 'bot."
This kind of reaction is a fundamental human tendency. There isn't a magic solution that cures it. I simply try to maintain and display a confidence that we could in fact be like them if we had the same level of passion and energy.