Quote:
Originally posted by The Lucas
On a serious note, the weigh-in is a very important part of gracious professionalism. Last year, teams called us on weight several times when we changed wings, but we had already weighed in under 130 before every match in question. If we had violated gracious professionalism so blatantly, we would have no choice but to give back the Regional Chairman's Award at Drexel. [/b]
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I'm reminded of an ungracious professionalism incident that happened this pass eekend at the NYC Regional.
A parent/mentor of a powerhouse and wonderful "team" decided to give the Head Inspector, who came directly from FIRST, a hard time about the inspector's weigh-in scale. In the pass this TEAM always gets multiple awards.
The parent instead that our scale is off by 5 lbs because their robot is overweight by 5 lbs and that can't be. To prove it to us that the scale is inaccurate, he and his friend got on the scale and show us that they "can't be that heav." He also claimed that he must be right because "he's an engineer (and we're not)." He didn't give up and asked to speak with the Regional Directors. He instead on us showing him prove that the sclae has been calibrated. What do we do to make this man happy?
Several of the inspectors run to another building where there is a weight room and picked up 70 lbs of dumbbells. We brough the weights back to the scale and show that at 70 lbs the reading was off 1 lbs which can be the weight themselves.
Well, this parent and team mentor was still not satisfied but the Head Inspector over ruled and falsed the teams robot.
Boy, was this man unhappy, so he started a complainting to everyone about what "dummies" the inspectors were. Word travel fast among the volunteers and every incident about the teams get funnel back to the FIRST judges (especially when the Thursday Inspectors are also the Friday Judges).
In conclusion, this team received very little votes for any FIRST awards that requires judging. This one miss guided parent/mentor who is clueless about FIRST and gracious professionalism really brought down a great team this year.
There is a lesson here for everyone.
