Quote:
Originally Posted by Danny Diaz
Why the heck even participate in the competition if your end goal isn't to win?
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If that simple statement were true, then only 20% of the teams in FRC would even show up to the tournaments; the rest too ashamed that they are not competitive enough.
FIRST is about the students. As mentors we show them that engineering is hard but with disciplined and steady work it can be immensely rewarding. (If it were easy, where's the satisfaction??)
They are all winners the minute they decide to get serious and start contributing to the team's efforts. The competitions are their chance to celebrate what they have accomplished. Whether they end up with a simple, complex, broken or top-tier robot will make no difference.
Teams that stress winning as the primary goal (and expect FIRST to make that easy), set the students up for disappointment when they don't achieve that goal which (gulp) may drive them away from enginering because the students go away with the idea that "it's too hard to be successful"... when in reality they are winners just for participating and working hard.