[Niezrecki]

I love FIRST and I love many things about the program, however I do hold one opinion that might not be so popular. Throughout my experience as a student in the FRC Community, we had a lot of ups and downs having to deal with the craziest of situations. Eventually that storm cooled and we were able to focus upon the team and team growth. Luckily we got to go to St. Louis that year and managed to grow the team with many different passionate students.

However, looking back on that experience, the awards were a nice form of recognition at the time. But they are not what I got out of FIRST. Leadership skills, communication skills, electrical knowledge, mechanical knowledge, physics applications, corporate relations, and many more developmental skills are what I walked away with from the program. And it changed me.

Too often I find that Alumni and Mentors focus too much on making the robot successful rather than making the team successful. If I were to change one thing in FRC, it would be to put the students before any other drive. Failing as a student is just as valuable as succeeding as one. Obviously I think there must be a balance. But when it comes to a decision of machining a component, deciding on a design, programming a robot, and making many other team decisions, I believe that there is great value in mentors only providing guidance rather than direction.