[RRLedford]

You are clearly upset with the perceived redirection of the team efforts away from the original plan.

All upsets will usually boil down to one (or a combination ) of three things:

1) Undelivered communication(s)
2 Unfulfilled expectation(s)
3) Thwarted intension(s)


In the case of #1 - I suggest that the ideas being hashed out in this thread need to be transitioned ASAP into a team meeting discussion covering the same topic of this thread.

This meeting discussion needs to address any issues relating to #2 as far as design agreements made and abandoned, (without consensus), and how you think that the #3 goal of doing well in competition may be put at risk if the boulder gathering and shooting is torpedoed by plans for adding an arm concept that occupies the needed space for the boulder mechanisms.

Priorities will need to be clearly reestablished and compromises will likely need to be made, but the bottom line is that the entire team needs to get back on the same page, or the season will turn into one where mentors/members will be blaming each other for future issues/failures, giving less than their max. efforts, and undermining progress toward goals to which they haven't fully committed to accomplishing (which you can STILL DO even when you think another way could be better).

Remember that negative assessments within a team can only lead to negative impact on progress and results. The sooner you communicate and clear the air surrounding these negative assessments, the better.
Clinging to negative assessments only sets the stage for you to gather more proof that the negative assessment was correct, and nearly always, merely being right about an assessment is less satisfying than accomplishing the goal.

Using this thread to collect confirming views for your negative assessment of where things are heading with your team will ultimately do little to fulfill your FRC team's goals.

The process for that to happen needs to take place within the team itself, and with all members present and communicating honestly. However, you can gain some insights for how to handle such a meeting from this thread, and this is the purpose of my post.

-Dick Ledford