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Originally Posted by flargen507
In our case, our robot only moved in 3 matches the entire weekend (yes that includes practice, all of which we attended). And yes we are a student built robot, and are almost fanatically proud about being so.
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Such pride seems misplaced. "We built an ineffective machine, all by ourselves! Yay for us!" It sounds like you're describing a bad situation (robot isn't very good) with a simple solution (having mentors help).
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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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If you can't find a way to "inspire" your kids other than denigrating others' good work, I am sad for your team. Why isn't it inspiring to see what the students on those other teams were able to do by partnering with their mentors? Why don't you encourage your kids to go talk with those other teams to get an idea of what
really makes them great, instead of feeding them the fiction that they're only great because the robots were built by professionals?
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And as for the smashing other robots, I can say that I am guilty of that as well. We smashed the robot of one of the best teams at our regional (in one of only 3 matches we functioned). I am proud to say that I cheered, because it was at that point it was the only real thing our robot had done.
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You don't have to be
ashamed about "smashing" another robot, but it is definitely not something to be proud of.
[edit]Unless the smashing was intentional, in which case you should be ashamed, and you should apologize. If it were up to me, I'd issue each member of your team his or her own personal yellow card for such an action.[/edit]
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Was it perhaps a little callous? Yes. But they were still able to repair it before the next match, and they are now going to nationals, so honestly they can't complain too much. But that moment was what really defined our entire season of work, and if that cost another team some hard work and stress then so be it.
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It looks like your team has some growing up to do. I hope it happens before you lose the opportunity to inspire your older students to feel good about bettering themselves instead of bringing others down.