[Dan-o]

I may be a little off base here, because I've been away from FIRST and MOE for about a half of a year now. I was the driver last year for team 365, and I loved robotics more than most things during my senior year. Every chance that i got, i tried to spend it in the shop practicing with the bot. But I had to realize, just because I had time to spend in the shop doesn't mean no one else had obligations that they had to tend to. To tell you the truth, if the mentors of my team had not explicitly warned me about being VERY available during the last couple weeks, I may have planned things and then not been able to cancel them due to unfortunate priorities. I'm not trying to say you're wrong in saying they're not committed, I don't know enough information about the situation to point fingers at anyone. But what i want to tell you is to be careful. During the last weeks of build phase and during competitions, I started to say things that I shouldn't have. I pointed out people's mistakes and shortcomings so far that I was missing my own. I ruined a lot of what could have been much better relationships with the people who i worked with for so long. Next time you go to a meeting, walk around the shop and look at everyone there, and point out the good things that each of them are doing. A bunch of mentors and students did that for me last year, and that's why I stayed motivated. Good luck to you and your team. The same goes to team 365 and 1370, MOE and M-Town.