[Keith Chester]

It took several years of hard work to get our school to recognize our group as a team, complete with naming our adviser the head coach of said team and getting him an assistant coach (with small bonuses in their pay). While they're still football oriented, we're beginning to turn their hearts away from the pigskin.

In order to be recognized as a team you must present yourselves as one. Our team presented itself as a team, with proud members wearing their ridiculous shirts throughout the halls, our long hours of hard work, staying far later during the build season than any football team did for any practices. We always carried ourselves as calm and collected, just as a true team would.

Then again, I see 25 as more a family than a team.

Don't worry. I've seen many school boards be resistant to the idea of a robotics team, and it's not because they're afraid of change or simply don't like the team- it's that they don't get it. They don't understand the time we must put into each bot for it to operate, the work and stress we endure to ensure we make each match.

The difference between a robotics "club" and a robotics "team" can be described in one particular moment this year at South Carolina. We came off the field, rushing the bot back to the pits. While we were victorious on the field, it was not without cost- the wire that runs our telescoping mast had been entangled in the bot's innards. The proper fix would take 10 minutes to 20 minutes. Unfortunately, we had a match in 3 minutes. Without a word the pit crew descended on the bot, each member taking care of each part with a flow and speed that would make nascar pit crews envious. Without words being traded amongst each pit member, each piece of the robot was checked and rechecked as repairs went on, tools being traded between hands only with monosyllabic phrases. It was as if the pit crew was one being, one entity, swallowing the bot whole to produce the fixed version. We made the next match before our opponents did, with a completely fixed robot.

That is the work of a team.