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Originally Posted by Joe Johnson
As one of the main programmers, I feel personally responsible for the software bug that had our robot sitting frozen in its starting position for the first 90 seconds of our final match.
I cannot apologize enough.
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If I've learned anything this year, it's that you can't blame yourself when things go wrong. You're part of a team - if the robot fails, it's not your fault. It's the team's fault.
At the Detroit Regional, almost everything that could have gone wrong for us did. We plugged the autonomous switch into the wrong port on the RC, disconnected a few wires moments before matches...heck, we even went the entire competition before noticing that the left and right side motors had been switched during a hasty rewiring job.
My friends on our Electronics group held themselves responsible...they decided that it was their fault, and refused to let anyone else take blame. Thing is...it
wasn't their fault. At all. We had more than a few people - at least 15 I can recall off the top of my head - that looked at the robot during the couse of the competition. The Electronics group may have missed it, and they may have actually been the ones that miswired it...but it wasn't caught by any of our drive team, other students, or the engineers. The entire team missed this one.
The point I'm trying to make: it's not anyone's fault. You can't blame yourself when everyone else misses it as well. Blaming one person accomplishes nothing.
You've been around in FIRST for a long time...you should know this one by now.
Things can (and will) go wrong...you've just got to learn from your mistakes and move on. If you blame yourself, you just make yourself miserable...and that's no way to go through a competition. We're here to have fun, remember?