[archiver]

Posted by Ken Leung at 05/24/2001 4:44 AM EST


College Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M. Gunn Senior High School.


In Reply to: How my team see me in here (Re: I need your opinion, please
Posted by Ken Leung on 05/24/2001 4:27 AM EST:



I was shocked when I read about how Carolyn's teammates treated her after being friendly with other teams. It is totally against what I strongly believes about one of the biggest impact FIRST and CD forum have on people: Bringing people from across the country together under one roof through science and technology, and have fun, learn from each other, and be make friends with each other.

I personally will not accept such comments from my team members, because meeting people who I never would¡¦ve met without FIRST is THE BEST experience I have with this competition. I personally will not allow anything to stop me from this experience, not my team, not school work, not even a cold so terrible that I shouldn¡¦t have left my house during Nationals¡K

I am sorry to hear that her teammates don¡¦t approve other her friendship with other teams. I never imagine that happening because I've seen how FIRST bring the people together with this year's competition. I am really disappointed that such idea exists in the first place¡K

BUT¡K

I understand that some teams might be conservative about their members interacting with other teams, for reasons such as the following:

He shouldn't be walking around the pit wasting time chatting with random people! He should be helping with cleaning up!

I don't like the idea that she is with bunch of teenagers walking around talking out loud!

Why is he so friendly with other teams~?!?! Is he defecting or giving out our secrets?

...

I know some of the reasons are exaggerated, because I can see there are few reasonable explanations for teams to disapprove their teammates being friendly with other people, such as student's responsibility with the team...

However, I really think that teams ought to let their students fully take advantage of the experience at competition. To learn from other teams and teach them what you know is a truly wonderful experience. People aren't wasting their time chatting with some random person, they are sharing each other's effort in this competition, and in the process re-evaluate the times they've been through, and hopefully look forward to more competition in the coming years because they enjoyed the events.

Of course the students will have complete their responsibility with the team... AND make sure they don¡¦t fail out of school¡K but that¡¦s just a minor set back.