I've read most of the thread but lost track of the flow, so I'll just give my schpeel and be done... in short... I don't think it's that we think we're better than others.
Well, it is and isn't. Yes, we are better than others. We built a beast of a robot that does an awesome function in a short 6 week time period. Probably 95% of the school couldn't do it, if even 5% of the school DID do it. And thus we are on a pedastal(sp? pedastle?) above the others in our school, for having done something we feel great love for, and succeeded in it. Even more so if you go and win some awards.
But...
How different is this from the football team, the soccer team, or whatever et cetera sport team that goes and succeeds? It isn't. The football players feel better about themselves for doing well, the tennis team feels better about themselves for doing well, just as much as we feel good about doing well. Any group that goes and performs a function better than others could, or that others couldn't, is indeed better than the others in that area. The fact of the matter is that no one's better in all areas, and we each have our separate spotlights that we shine under. We're equal in the general view of our separate shining points, just unequal under those specific shining points. Gracious professionalism is equivalent to sportsmanship as far as I'm concerned, they cover most of the same area.
The inherent difference is that FIRST, VEX, and the LEGO leagues were not available to us all of our lives. For most of us, any way, and those who have had it available for so long are quite the exceptional exception. Quite a few of us probably feel comfortable calling ourselves geeks, nerds, techies, maybe even a few trekkies
And for the most part we've been on the outcast side of the social circles. The football players have been able to sit on their spotlights and show them off forever. All the girls wanted the football players, not the geeks hacking through school protections so they could access "net send" and talk to each other in computer class. The jocks have had pedastals(sp? again) the entire time from which they bent down to look us in the eye. And all of a sudden... we have our own. We have our own piece of work that we're able to be proud of, and want to show off. We have our own trophies which we can be happy that we earned, and earned in the name of our schools (or other institution). And we did it all, without 90% of the verbal and physical dislike that you find in many sports. Suddenly, we've achieved as well if not better than they have, and we've done it in a much more professional manner.
You'll find most of this is due to atmosphere. You've got the difference between a field, where you are personally battling with others to prove you are better than them, and the field your bot is on, where most of your battle is a hundred feet away trying to make your bot excellent. How are you making it excellent? Programming, working with electronics, manipulating constructed equipment. Which, in the future, will be predominantly in a business setting. The sports players need to train themselves, battle with themselves to make themselves individually and as a team harder, better, faster, stronger, to beat the other team. They are personally competing with every other opposing player. They NEED to be better than others. The put-downs come in due to human nature. In FIRST, you're on a team. Your team will be placed in rank among the other teams, less about your skill, but by the quality of your ideas and your implementations of those ideas and the surrounding strategies according to these ideas. FIRST is a bigger competition of idea than of ability.
Then you get to the FIRST regional, and no one has finished their idea. 6 weeks isn't enough time and every person in FIRST knows it
Including that no one is finished, some teams simply lack the resources to finish their ideas. In comes the idea of gracious professionalism, where the larger and more resourceful team can help the smaller and less fortunate team(s). It's all a part of the community, and the mutual respect found in the community. Sports teams have it too, in the hand shakes you see to start and end most sports.
Looking back at my first and last sentences, I seem to have flown off on my own tangent. So I'll try and bring it back into focus. GP is one of the greatest parts of the FIRST community. That everyone's there to work hard, have fun, and help others work had and have fun is amazing. It can also get carried away, as Cody seems to have seen, and has certain people find themselves on a pedastal higher than everyone else. No, it's not right, and I agree with Cody fully in that matter. Everyone is their own person, and should be judged strictly according to each individual. If they happen to shine in a certain spotlight, awesome. But there's not a chance they're shining brighter than every other person in separate spotlights, and they shouldn't think that.
(hopefully someone'll understand my ramblings
)