Quote:
Originally Posted by Don1498
The reason being is since 1114 has engineers giving them good idea and stuff. All their students have to do is make a product out of it.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Don1498
I am 100 % sure that it’s not all students doing it.
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Don, I'm surprised some of the comments you made are coming from a FIRST "alumni". Maybe a new person who doesn't know what FIRST is about might think some of those things, but from an alumni surprises me.
First, pretty much the entire premise FIRST is based upon is teachers, engineers and mentors giving good ideas and guidance to students. If you think 1114 is any different than 98% of FIRST teams in that regard, you would be mistaken. There are thousands of great and brilliant engineers giving good ideas and help to over a thousand FIRST teams, 1114 is just one single team in a very big club in that regard. If the students have worked with those ideas and "made the product" with them, then congratulations to them for doing such a great job.
Second, some people in these always recurring threads seem to forget a key thing - FIRST doesn't want students doing 100% everything on a team. Any team that claims to be 100% student run and built is not accomplishing all the goals of FIRST. It's great such teams are able to compete, but if they don't have engineers working with them, giving them ideas, teaching them new things and helping them build better robots, then that is the # 1 missing aspect of their team they should be trying to improve for the next year.
Third, teams that "win" fall on every step of the resource spectrum. To imply that one team is the only team that can ever win an event because they have more resources is a disservice to all the other teams. Resources and building a great robot is only part of what it takes to "win". Teams that win, especially consistently, require good designs, good driving, good coaching, good strategy, good alliance partners and good luck. And even when they have all of those things, they frequently don't win. We've all seen many many many instances where the clear cut "best" robot at an event did not win that event because they didn't have one or more of those things I just listed.
Last, don't worry. Yes, they are on a great and very impressive roll, but you'll be happy to know 1114 has lost events in the past and they will lose many more in the future. Any and all sports will have super teams or dynasties that pop up every few years. That will never change no matter what the sport or competition. Those teams raise the bar and motivate all the others to reach their level. But new super teams and dynasties will always come along to replace and/or join the existing ones, and this has been happening in FIRST for quite some time. I know that the most successful teams in FIRST like 45, 47, 71, 111 and others were great inspiration and motivation to myself and my teams when we started, and having them in a different division would not have motivated us as much to try to reach their level.