Quote:
Originally Posted by Abwehr
While I agree with most of your points, I think you do need to consider what a "superpower" team looks like from the outside looking in.
Essentially, all teams start the season with the same basic resources - a kit of parts, a game description, and six weeks.
Now imagine you're a kid on a small team with a limited budget and mentor resources. You work for 8 hours after school each day, plus weekends, and finally show up at competition with something made of your own blood, sweat, and tears. It probably is a little homemade looking, maybe it works okay most of the time, but it is your own small victory after six weeks of hell.
Then you look in the pit next to you and see a robot that looks like it was ordered out of a catalog.
As an adult, how would that make you feel? I sure would be jealous!
Now, as a high school aged-student, how would that make you feel? Are you telling me that a 16-18 year old has the emotional maturity to not feel bad - even a little - about his own showing when kids the same age are sitting next to a future FIRST championship winner?
Life isn't fair, and FIRST isn't either. That's a hard lesson for a kid to learn.
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It'd make me want to do whatever I could possibly do to make my team better, so that I could be at the same level.
When I was a freshman in high school, I was jealous of the so called mentor built teams. I didn't really like my current team. I thought that NASA built their robot, etc etc. I'm not real proud of myself for thinking that way, but I didn't know any better, and of course it's easier to attack others for the things they've earned than better your own situation.
I came to realize that those teams had the things they had because of hard work, dedication, and a desire to always be improving. I also came to realize that every person I looked up to in FIRST was an engineer or mentor for teams that appeared to be "mentor built".
Instead of limiting everyone who has worked hard for the things they have, the people who have less should ask them how they did it, so they can aspire to the same heights.