Woody Flowers talked about Gracious Professionalism during the 2013 kickoff. He referenced team 1108(and today is 11/08!) and how during the Greater Kansas City Regional they had their trailer stolen off an SUV. This trailer was lent to them by someone in the community for competition. This was a huge loss for them as the trailer contained tools, spare parts and I think there was even a few awards in there. The Greater Kansas City Regional banded together and started collecting the $100 MasterCard gift cards we were given to help cover the expenses to replace what was lost.
Another anecdote from the Greater Kansas City Regional: We have had teams show up on Thursday with just the kit of parts and very few tools. They had been registered and wanted to compete but did not have any experience to create a robot. Teams jumped together very quickly to help them build a robot that if I remember correctly was moving before Thursday was over.
Sidenote: It was awesome to hear Woody mention this during kickoff as I had forgotten he was there that year or that he even was aware of what took place as it happened during the final day of competition. It was even better he mentioned it cause I was sitting next to my cousin who is a 1108 alumni who was on the team when this took place.
2013 Kickoff Woody on Gracious Professionalism
To me Gracious Professionalism is comprised of professional courtesy, sportsmanship, teamwork and competition. Although we are all broken into separate teams and alliances we have to work together to make this program work. Without Gracious Professionalism we would be like competing companies (think of P&G and Johnson & Johnson if you need more of a visual) working to get ahead of the other, making sure no trade-secrets get out. Instead we work together and band together to help each other grow and become better teams this in turn helps each team build better robots making for more competitive matches, making for a more fun competition.