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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Here's a little story for you about my first FIRST experience. I first got hooked on FIRST through FLL. I joined in 6th grade during the Volcanic Panic challenge. Most of my team had played with Lego Mindstorms before and owned kits, but none had ever built a robot for a competition of any sort. We spent months building and programming our robot to complete the various missions. In our first competition run the robot shattered into pieces as I went to retrieve it after it drove astray. We put it back together and competed the rest of the day and ended up near the bottom of the pack, 40th out of 42 teams. Makes you wonder why I'm still here right?
We'll I'm still here because I saw an amazing robot built by the Rosemount Roboraiders that earned a perfect score in multiple runs. I was immensely impressed by their robot, their cool white jumpsuits, and their calm demeanor at the table. I was inspired to do better. I spent all summer researching Lego design and programming. I built and programmed countless robots of various designs. Each year after that I learned more and my team's performance improved. I never did manage to earn a perfect score in competition, but I sure learned a heck of a lot trying.