Quote:
Originally Posted by Hot_Copper_Frog
-Snipped to save space.-
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Thank you for the words of praise; I am sure the team would be very delighted to hear them (and perhaps a few Toasters are even lurking CD right this moment).
Frog Force and Plymouth Lightning have both been of tremendous help the past several years as we tried to get the ball rolling, and I don't quite know where we would be as a team without their guidance and friendship. I'm very grateful for everything they have done for us, and I know my team is as well. It's been a real treat for me watching our team this year, because it's really taken off since I (and the rest of the founders) graduated and it feels good knowing that we helped to set the building blocks, the foundation upon which they are now building and growing and changing.
Our Chairman's mentor (the one mentioned in the original post) was shared between us and 862; he's an alumni from Frog Force as well. He was a bit tough, always wanting and expecting more from us each week, but he taught us very well. His praise didn't come easy, but when you got it, you knew you had really done well. And I think this is why his email the morning after MSC really left an impact on me, because it told me that we had truly earned his praise.
That was certainly an accomplishment!
As for other mentors that impacted me... I've gotta say, the most influential by far to me, personally, is our team's coach -- Ronald Weber. After the three years I knew him as a student and the two since, I've come to realize that he and I are almost scarily alike in so many ways. High school, in my first two years, was rough to say the least. Having been homeschooled all the way up to 9th grade, public education was a terrifying, broad new world for me. I had a
lot of "down" moments during those two years, and at one point in my Sophomore year, I came so close to quitting the team and robotics altogether because I was frustrated, struggling, and scared. But when I told him that I was thinking of quitting, he looked me straight in the eyes and told me that
I was one of the deciding factors that made him establish this FRC team that year. I was completely dumbfounded by that statement -- I mean, at that point, I'd only been a member for half a school year and through the entire OCCRA season. Yet he had so much faith in me and my abilities, along with the abilities of everyone else that joined that year, that he felt confident enough to enter a whole new level of competition. That trust, that faith on his part, is a lot of what built me up into who I am today. He's always been there for me and everyone else, he's always treated his students as equals. There were even times when
he asked
us for advice, which made all of us feel like our judgment and opinions were really valued and respected. Even now, I consider him one of the best friends I made in high school, and we still talk on a fairly regular basis about anything from robotics to college and life in general. He has a very unique perspective on everything, and proudly walks to the beat of his own drum. And as someone else who is pretty unconventional in many ways (such as being the only student to wear a bright blue pair of wings on her head on competition days, even through the half-day spent in class
), I admire his confidence and security in himself. He's definitely been the person who has left the biggest impact on my life from the team, and remains one of my personal heroes/role models.