[Sean Schuff]

My first thought when I read the opening message in this thread was "What is Andy Baker doing up at 12:30 AM? Isn't that waaaaayyy past his bed time?!"

I like what I’m reading here and I agree with Kim that the quality of responses is far greater than anything else I’ve read.

I have seen this discussion played out before on these forums and I always feel compelled to reply. I am one of those people who used to spout about how our robot was student built and how all of our ideas were original to our team and blah, blah, blah. Looking back on those days all I can think is "what a bunch of crap!"

It's not that I should not have been pleased with those accomplishments but I was not proud of them for the right reasons. I was trying to make a statement against team's whose robots have a significant amount of professional engineering and manufacturing going into them. Boy was I naïve. FIRST is not about scoring a team’s success based on what percentage of the design, manufacturing, scouting and so on that the students do. It is about the impact it has on students and their future pursuits no matter how that is accomplished.

This year our team “borrowed” ideas from other teams (hey, sharing is a part of the spirit of FIRST, right?) and put them to use on our robot. One was a two-speed shift-on-the-fly transmission and the other was an omni wheel. Both were courtesy of Andy Baker and the Technokats. (Thanks Andy!) We did have our engineers and students do some tweaking to make them fit our needs but the fundamental ideas came from another team. And both worked phenomenally well; so much so that we finally won our first competition in our 9 year history. Sharing is the spirit of FIRST and I think we employed those resources well this year.

In the last few years I have made a conscious effort to correct those members of our team that point out how Team So-N-So has a robot that was built by engineers. So what?! It’s their team! How would we like it if other teams told us how to do our business? Besides, who has time to analyze other teams like this anyway? How counterproductive and what a tremendous waste of time.

There is no one correct way to function within the world of FIRST and there is no magic recipe for team success but staying focused on your team and working as a team certainly play big parts. And any mentor worth their salt will tell you that the ingredient none of us has control over – luck – plays a significant part in each year’s game! While chance favors the prepared mind (and prepared team) a certain amount of luck will always give you a boost or take you out of contention.

In my opinion I think FIRST takes teamwork to a whole new level. Not just among members of the same team but also among competing teams. Imagine that – the teams that are trying to beat you every year are also sharing their ideas and expertise with you! Now THAT’S teamwork! Why would you want to knock other teams?

If we stop trying to micromanage the FIRST experience we’ll all have more fun and more success. Big picture – stop worrying about how other teams manage their affairs. Not to put too fine a point on it but it really isn’t any of your business anyway. When your team is absolutely perfect, then you can begin judging the others. And for crying out loud, HAVE FUN!

My 2 cents.

Sean