[gblake]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Blake,
You have completely missed the message of FIRST...

No, I don't think that I have. And for you to make assert such a broad and sweeping misrepresentation of what I wrote is seems just a bit presumptous.

I read exactly the same FIRST mission statements that you read. I attempt to inspire students and instill in them a gut-level understanding of the value of leadership through service to others, excellence for its own sake, expanding an appreciation for the value and role of STEM in our communities, and collaboration right up until the moment of competition.

But - My observation was not about what I or you individually do or do not think or do - My observation pointed out the obvious fact that at the World Championship and at regionals, the audience, teams and the event organizers devote much more time, ceremony and public spectacle to determining which machine/team wins on the field than they do to the competition for the Engineering Inspiration and Chairman's awards. In that way our/FIRST's actioins speak far louder than words.

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

The whole idea of FIRST is to realize that even though we crown a champion at an event, a teams makeup and how they can give back to themselves and the community is what really matters.

Those are fine, interesting words; but they are not the words that were used over and over again by announcers, and they are not the words on the banners, and they do not describe the metric that separates the Winners from the Finalists on the Einstein field.

If you want to disagree with my observation, cite some evidence that team make-up and giving back is celebrated (much) more than winning on the competition fields.

I didn't say that makeup/giving isn't celebrated at all or that it shouldn't be celebrated more. What I said was that I disagreed to a large extent with the following assertion and I then cited evidence to back up my claim.

We measure a teams success in FIRST not by their regional wins, but by how they conduct themselves as a team, and how they conduct themselves to the FIRST community as well as the public community

And, again, I didn't say that we shouldn't measure teams by their conduct, etc. I observed that right now, to a very large extent, our actions seem to be attaching more importance to other measurements (i.e. regional and world wins)

I hardly think that you have evidence that justfies saying that I have completely missed the message of FIRST. I think what I have done is noticed how that written message seems to be out of synch with the actual message(s) FIRST tournaments are delivering.

Blake