Thread: COTS: How far should it go?
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Unread 26-01-2016, 13:24
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Re: COTS: How far should it go?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber View Post
Our goal is inspiration. Therefore our goal is to make sure that teams are at least reliably capable of achieving the game challenge.
Inspiration does not mean that a team has to win a regional. It does mean they have to be able to demonstrate to the world that they can do something, score a small percentage of the goals in a match. It means the team has something that can be built on. It means that they have hope of improving themselves.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber View Post
You ever worked with a team that consistently failed to build a competitive robot? Seen the type of beating that losing constantly and missing eliminations brings? Ever tried to bring people up from that?

Winning feels good, it's inspiring. Going out and going 0-12 blows. It beats you up and you start to question if you're good enough. You start to think "I'm not smart enough for this" which is exactly the battle we're trying to fight. I never worked with a team that went 0-12... but did come close a few times. And let me tell, as an adult, someone who had, at that point, been involved in successful FRC teams for year, it rattled me. And I'm a lot more confident in my abilities than kids who have to deal with wondering if their house is gonna get broken into that night (again) who don't have clean water to drink or food on the table.

I'll stand by my claim.
I have worked with several team that "make the top 70%" possible. Their robots barely moved on the field. They lost matches where the strongest robot on the opposing alliance sat dead. I can confirm that the team members and mentors (myself included) started wondering if this is a worthwhile use of their time and resources. Some of those teams have still not recovered from the bad decisions they made years ago. I was told by one of the parents on one of those teams that one of their major sponsors had started wondering if the program was worth supporting. Even if the sponsor believes in the mission of FIRST, they might think about supporting a different team.
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